


Invincible

by GuardianKarenTerrier



Category: Jak and Daxter
Genre: Action, Adventure, Aftermath of Torture, Angst, Apocalyptic to Post-Apocalyptic, Body Horror, Families of Choice, Gen, Horror, Hurt/Comfort, Muteness, Mutism, Orphans, Other, Past Torture, Post-Apocalypse, Rebellion, Recovery, Running Away, transformations
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-08
Updated: 2016-01-02
Packaged: 2018-03-10 21:27:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 12
Words: 26,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3304067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GuardianKarenTerrier/pseuds/GuardianKarenTerrier
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No matter how bad it gets, there will always be a last few people saying, "We're gonna survive." The enemy has more than the rebels can hope for. The rebels have almost nothing save each other. They're still going to win. They have to.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This prologue truly is just a prologue; Daxter and Jak and the rest of the cast will be here immediately when the first chapter is up as well.

 

**Invincible**

_**Prologue** _

The world is at war with itself.

The endless fighting centers on the ruins of Haven City. The war started there. It was small things at first; the walls were crumbling, the metalheads began to sneak in, first one by one and then in greater numbers. The council did nothing, secure in the knowledge that they were buffered by the slums.

Within days all that was left of the poorest part of the city was the Water Slums. Most of the metalheads couldn't swim, and the few that could were easily dispatched by the same civilians that had retreated to the Water Slums when their homes were overrun. The city was divided into three major sectors- the Water Slums, the Inner City, and the old slums which were collectively renamed Dead Town.

The new generation of children, the vast majority of them orphaned by metalhead attacks, found themselves growing up on the streets of Dead Town. The weaker children began to die off. Only those who were quick enough or strong enough or smart enough or a combination of the three survived, scratching out a living either in the ruined sections of the city or far outside the walls in the few villages that survived in the wastes. Shelters sprang up and died. Safe havens were formed, became overcrowded and useless, and were forgotten again.

The metalkids, as they came to be called, created their own society full of intricacy and intrigue. Those who lived thrived as they ran wild. Very few of them had any illusions about living to adulthood- even now there is graffiti all over the walls of Dead Town that says simply _Fight forever_. The motto is an accurate summary of a metalkid's life- if ever they stop fighting, they will inevitably die. They don't question that any more than they would the cycle of day into night.

While the rest of the city declined rapidly, the council members continued to rule safely from the palace in the heart of the city, buffered by Dead Town and the metalkids that lived there.

Then the Industrial District fell to the metalheads.

That was close enough to shattering their fragile safety that the council began to rally and train an elite force to protect the Inner City. It was the responsibility of the Krimzon Guards to make sure the metalheads- and, for that matter, the metalkids too- stayed outside the Inner City safe zone. Haven Hospital was opened at the edge of Dead Town and the healers it trained either found a place in the city or left to chance the wastes, hoping to reach one of the remaining villages. Parts of Dead Town began to revive. Hotels and bars opened. The quality was never anything but terrible, but most people were willing to brave it for the feel of camaraderie the places evoked and for the modicum of safety they provided.

Haven had a brief period of stability. The ruins were not reclaimed, but no more of the city was lost. The metalkids, unwelcome in the Inner City, forged their own homes from the ashes of their old ones. The KG were able to protect the Inner City and eventually even to hold open a route to the nearer wasteland villages. A man who called himself Baron Praxis emerged as the leader of the council. Once established, he began to look for ways to regain the lost parts of the city and even to recapture the wasteland.

In the end, it was the spectacular failure of the Baron's Dark Warrior program that cost them even the heart of Haven.

All of the experiments had been flawed. One, the precursor to the Dark Warrior program, was rumored to have been somewhat more promising and might still have been an acceptable fighting force, might still have given them the chance the Baron had tried to win, but that single subject had somehow been lost in the early days of the program.

The flawed experiments escaped. Destroying Haven Hospital, they flooded the city, bonded with the metalheads and quickly began to attack anyone they saw. Those few not killed outright by the dark eco the Dark Warriors used were warped by it, effectively becoming lesser Dark Warriors themselves.

The entire city was in ruins. The Krimzon Guard were already a distant memory; nearly all of them were dead or had become Warriors. Most of the civilians left were without hope, a great many of them spending all their time huddled in their homes waiting to die. Some of them left to try and make it to the outlying villages that were rumoured both to still exist and to be defensible rallying points.

A handful of elves became rebels, fighting stubbornly against the metalheads and Dark Warriors, hoping that someday they could take their city back. The rebellion took metalkids and civilians, the few former KG left, and even a few members of the old council- almost anyone still willing and able to fight joined the rebels.

The enemy is vast and mindless, comprised of an endless stream of metalheads, the results of the old regime's experiments gone horribly wrong, and the dying remains of the old regime itself. The enemy is armed with claws and fangs and steel, dark eco, and all the weaponry that was abandoned when the city finally fell to the wasteland.

The rebels are few and scattered. They have only a severely limited number of ancient firearms, a handful of rescued zoomers, their fists and their feet and their wits and each other.

Their main hope lies in two young boys.

One of them is a metalkid who had gone to live outside the city during the stable period and so survived the final attack.

The other is the first subject of the flawed experiments, the only one who has yet to be entirely overtaken by the dark eco.

They're still going to win.

Fight forever or die- in the world as they know it, there is no other option.

This is how the fight began.


	2. Do Not Enter (Isn't A Dare)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for a while there I used to play a game where I tried to see how many places I could get into that I wasn't supposed to be
> 
> I mostly quit playing after I got locked inside a closed store and had to ask some astonished employees to let me back out

                Daxter knew better than to go sneaking off. He was quite aware that Samos would be pissed. He realised Keira would be- well, mainly disappointed that he’d snuck off without her, but also pissed. As he never tired of reminding them, Samos had been kind enough to take the both of them in; the least he could expect back was for them (well, Daxter; Keira paid attention) to just _listen_ to him once in a while.

 

                Of course, Daxter also knew not to poke wumpbee nests and run, and not to harass crocadogs, and that taunting the lurker sharks was a good way to get a chunk bitten out of your boat, and especially that playing chicken with a stolen zoomer and an angry metalhead was a terrible idea, and none of that had ever stopped him before.

 

                Besides, who the hell wanted to tour a _hospital_ in the first place?

 

                Samos did, of course, because he was their tiny village’s only healer and Haven Hospital had new techniques he wanted to learn, but Dax still didn’t see why he and Keira had to come along. All right, so it was a lot safer to travel in a group, and yes, he would definitely have gotten into trouble if Samos _had_ left him behind. He wasn’t denying that.

 

                But, as he walked through a door marked Do Not Enter, Daxter thought wryly that it wasn’t like he was going to _stay_ out of trouble just because he was away from home.

 

                Daxter knew the trick to getting into all kinds of places you weren’t supposed to be- just look like you belonged. In the days before Samos found him and convinced him that a guaranteed place to sleep at night trumped a life of vagrancy, it was how he’d found food and shelter.

 

                It was downright astonishing how many hotels in Haven City didn’t notice someone was sleeping in a room they’d never let out, or that one of the people scarfing their continental breakfast had never stayed there.

 

                Of course, it was also astonishing that Dead Town even _had_ hotels.

 

                At any rate, Samos had _mostly_ convinced Dax that a permanent residence was a good thing. Daxter still liked to wander their village, and the city when they visited it.

 

                He didn’t miss sleeping in the ruined airlocks, though. That hadn’t always gone over well.

 

                Behind the Do Not Enter door Daxter found a whole mess of corridors, one huge main one with a lot more branching off, that he never would have guessed were there. The building didn’t actually look this big from the outside, but then, he’d slipped down a few staircases already. Maybe he was underground. That’d be kind of cool. He could just picture telling Keira now- she’d be jealous, of course, that he’d run off and found a web of catacombs (okay, so it was like… one hallway and a lot of branches, but whose opinion counted here?) while she’d played Daddy’s Good Little Girl and stayed where she was supposed to. That is, listening to a lecture that Dax was sure would have bored him to tears.

 

                It did strike Daxter as odd that there didn’t appear to be _anyone_ in this part of the hospital. Maybe he wasn’t in the hospital anymore. Maybe this was like one of those horror stories Keira loved where there was a whole sub-basement hidden between floors and people did experiments there.

 

                For a minute Dax thought he’d let that line of thought run away from him, because the main corridor suddenly opened up into a huge circular room. There was a ring of doors around the far edge of the room, a series of partitioned-off alcoves on the near edge, and a _really_ creepy metal chair in the middle.

 

                Maybe Keira hadn’t been pulling those stories from thin air after all.

 

                Ducking into an alcove, Daxter stopped to think. Come to think of it, he had _no_ idea where Samos had found Keira. She’d lived with the sage long before he had. He had just always assumed she was a metalkid like him that Samos had pulled from the streets. He knew she thought of herself as a former metalkid, anyway. He wasn’t sure why she always tagged the ‘former’ on there; if you were a metalkid you were a metalkid. Dax could no more change that aspect of himself than he could decide not to _be_ himself. Keira always said _former_ , though, and he’d never asked. One of the first rules he’d learned as a kid was that privacy was about all most metalkids had. Daxter didn’t pry.

 

                Daxter still didn’t know why, out of the entire network of metalkids roaming Haven, Samos had picked out him and Keira to give a home to. He doubted he’d ever know why. A good half the time, at least, Samos didn’t even seem to _like_ him.

 

                Samos had found Daxter sleeping in an abandoned zoomer, and it had taken the sage a good two years to convince Daxter to let himself be taken in. Precursors, Daxter couldn’t help but wander off even now. He wondered where Samos had found Keira though. Could she be telling stories about a place she’d actually been?

 

                Well, he couldn’t know that until he saw her again and could ask, and that was assuming she’d tell him the truth, which she probably wouldn‘t. So instead, he’d go back to doing what he was best at and keep exploring.

 

                He didn’t really want to get too close to that chair- it looked like it was _bleeding_ shadows and though the limits of Daxter's curiosity were far away they _did_ exist- so he edged around the room over to the doors, keeping to the shadows (the nice, normal kind) in case someone came in. He didn’t think he’d be able to pull off looking like he belonged _here_.

 

                There were windows in the doors. It was kind of risky to look into them since it put him in a direct line of sight with the room’s main entrance, and after the first two were empty he weighed the risk against his curiosity, but his curiosity won out and he kept looking.

 

                When he got to the fourth door he was glad he’d kept going. Well, sort of.

 

                There was somebody in there.

 

                The rooms had all been the same; small, square rooms with a metal cot on one side, a bucket pushed mostly under the cot, and a drain in the middle of the floor.

 

                This room had someone lying on the cot.

 

                He looked like a kid. He looked like he was around Daxter’s age, although Dax was a lousy judge of other people’s ages so he couldn’t say for sure, and he was wearing really ratty clothes. It looked like the other kid was asleep, but Daxter couldn’t tell because the boy was lying facedown. He was gripping the edge of the cot, apparently for support, which was kind of odd, and if he was asleep it didn’t seem to be peaceful. He was trembling.

 

                Just as Daxter was inspecting the door to see if he could get it open and see whether or not he’d found a friend here- crazy people could be cool friends, right?- footsteps in the hall forced him to flee.

 

                There was some kind of journal in the room, though, and it was marked with the same number as the door to that room, so Dax snagged it on his way out. Just in case.

 

                It wasn’t like he didn’t know his way back.

 

                It was pretty late at night when he found a place to curl up and open the mystery journal. Keira and Samos had a hotel room, and there was room for him to sleep there if he wanted to, but after the first few attempts Samos had given up at making the redhead sleep anywhere he didn’t want to. Daxter would only wait until the others were asleep and escape out a window anyway.

 

                Daxter just didn’t like being cooped up, that was all. He’d been on his own for years. He was used to his privacy and to having the run of the city. He was more than used to having multiple escape routes. Living on the streets of Dead Town for however many years, making sure he had a quick way out had become ingrained.

 

                Plus, it was _amazing_ how much more privacy he could get outside than he could sharing a room. He liked Keira well enough, and he really was grateful to Samos in a weird obscure way, but sometimes he missed his freedom. He’d done well on the streets- he had a talent for doing well on very little. Not that he wanted to have it become the way of things permanently ever again, not since the last few bad winters he’d had, but he did need to go be by himself sometimes.

 

                Besides, he wasn’t _like_ Keira. He couldn’t just happily accept her and Samos as his new family the way she could. The world didn’t _work_ like that as far as Dax was concerned. Keira had even been willing to refer to Samos as Daddy- Dax was horrified at the thought. He’d had a father, once. He didn’t particularly want a new one.

 

                The journal was handwritten, with some weird stains on the cover. They were black and brown and made him think of dried blood. He hoped that wasn’t what it was- Samos had lectured him and Keira all too often about transmissible diseases. Daxter had been confused at the constant lectures, then annoyed when he realised what Samos thought about how his younger charge had been surviving so well on the streets. Daxter was _clever_ , and quick, and a damn good thief; he was _not_ a whore, thanks very much. A lot of the metalkids _were_ , since it was an easy way to find food and shelter, but Dax had never gone that route. He had friends that had, and he didn’t bear any ill will towards them, but that was a situation he himself had chosen to avoid at all costs.

 

He also didn't think he would have had much success at it but that had to be way the hell up there on subjects he didn't want to discuss with Samos.

 

                There wasn’t much written on the first page of the journal. It only said _Subject 103DE2_ and a date, about two years ago. Maybe a little longer- the ink was a little smudged.

 

                The rest of it was set up a little weird. Dax wasn’t real sure what he’d expected to find; to be honest he’d just never quite kicked the habit of picking up anything that caught his interest. Still, this didn’t look like any journal he’d ever seen before.

 

                The first actual entry was split into three sections. It said _Conflict: Subject diet_ on the line below the date, then it skipped a few lines before _Suggestions_ and a long list of bland-sounding diets, and after a few more blank lines it finished with _Resolution: One (1) slice bread @7evd, (1) cup water 3xevd, (2)orange 2xwkly._

 

                After a long time staring at the weird shorthand Daxter was pretty sure ‘evd’ meant ‘every day’ and positive that ‘2xwkly’ meant ‘two times weekly.’ But.. that didn’t exactly look like a lot of food, even to him, especially if he considered that there were other possible ways to translate 'evd.' He was starting to get a sinking feeling in his stomach.

 

                The rest of the journal was set up the same way. Flipping to random pages yielded a lot of increasingly disturbing ‘conflict’ entries, like ‘subject unresponsive to conditioning’ and ‘subject resisting treatment; refuses increase aggression.’

 

                By that point Daxter had already decided he was going to have to go back and rescue the kid. Dax had never rescued anyone before, but if Samos could do it for him and Keira, it couldn’t be that hard, right? And yeah, so Daxter was kind of scrawny and not really any better at fighting than any metalkid had to be, but he was fast and he was good at getting away. He figured it evened out.

 

                It was the last page the journal fell open to that hardened his resolve, though. It wasn’t the last page of the journal- it was actually fairly close to the beginning- but it was the last one he needed to read.

 

                _Conflict: Subject evoking sympathy from scientists_

_Suggestions: Demoralize, dehumanize_

_Resolution: Cut subject’s vocal cords; scientists no longer acknowledging subject. Successful resolution._

 

                Daxter didn’t even wait until morning to go back.


	3. Over Peaceful Slavery

                He and the other metalkids he’d run with briefly, before Dax had decided he was safer and more comfortable on his own, had hidden gear all over the city. Some of it was bound to still be there. After a moment’s hesitation Daxter slipped the journal into his rucksack and went to get ready.

 

                Clearly, the kid needed help, Dax reasoned. Probably no one else even knew he was there. Except the scientists and whoever wrote the journal and, well, if they wrote the journal he doubted they cared about the kid’s well-being.

 

                The artist back at the village was always going on about karma. Daxter figured that Samos taking him off the streets, even if it had entailed a lot of convincing, was enough good karma that he owed the universe a good turn.

 

                The hospital was ridiculously easy to get back into. He slipped into a group of people heading for the visitor cafeteria, broke away from them to join another group heading for the ER, and eventually found his way back to the same ominous Do Not Enter door.

 

                He stayed to the shadows again, but the hallway and the room were clear.

 

                Well, the hallway was. The room… he guessed it _technically_ was.

 

                Dax could see the other boy a lot more clearly now. That was because the kid wasn’t in his cell anymore. Instead, he was on his back on the metal chair in the centre of the room, eyes closed, breathing unsteadily.

 

                When he moved a little closer, Daxter realised the boy was strapped down.

 

                Well, Dax had come prepared. He had one of his old kits with him, retrieved from an even older hiding place- an even better place than he’d thought for the kit to still be there after all this time. He grabbed a lock pick and went to work.  There were still oddly-behaved shadows all around the chair but Daxter absently weighed that in his mind against the need to help the other kid and it wasn't a contest. The shadows tried to sink into his bones and filled him with a strange cold ache, but Daxter could shake that off; he'd shaken off worse than that before. 

 

                It wasn’t until Dax had freed his hand that the boy’s eyes flew open.

 

                His immediate reaction was to try and hit Daxter, whose reflexes thankfully let him jump out of the way before the movement had even really registered.

 

                “ _Hey_ ,” Daxter hissed, keeping his voice low. “I’m trying to _help_ you, ya jerk. You wanna leave, don’t you?” He moved back and quickly freed the boy’s other hand. “Seriously, jus’ stay quiet and _follow me_.”

 

                Those blue eyes still watched him with distrust and possibly a little fear, but there were no more attempts to hit him as Dax finished opening all the restraints and offered his hand to help the boy up.

 

                The kid refused it, instead sliding off the chair and wobbling a little as he stood.

 

                “I’m Daxter,” Dax said quickly. “We don’t have time for a formal introduction, okay? I know a quick way out.”

 

                Despite his words, Daxter didn’t actually expect it to be a quick escape. He expected to be stopped, questioned, maybe even for an alarm to go off, but nothing happened. Ten minutes later, just like that, they were outside again.

 

Maybe there was no alarm.  Maybe the place they'd just left was secret enough that they didn't want to take that risk.  Maybe the people who had build it had been that impressed with themselves that they didn't feel an alarm was necessary.

 

Maybe they were stupid, and that was the thought Daxter preferred to go with, for more than one reason.

 

                He turned to his new friend after a couple of extra checks for a silent alarm. The boy was leaning against the wall of the cluttered alleyway Dax had led him to, staring at the sky with an expression of wonder and longing.

 

                Daxter dragged a few more heaps of trash into the front of the alley to block them from view before turning to his rescued friend. At least, Dax hoped he’d be a friend. “Hey. So what’s your name anyway? I told you mine.”

 

                Tearing his gaze away from the sky, the boy instead stared at Daxter a long moment before pulling his scarf away from his throat. There was a nasty-looking scar there.

 

                “Yeah, I know,” Dax said patiently, which caused the kid to widen his eyes and then look away from Daxter for a long moment. “But there’s gotta be another way for you to tell me. Can ya write?”

 

                Reluctantly, the boy shook his head.

 

                “Damn. Um.” Daxter thought a second. “Can ya act it out?”

 

                After a moment’s hesitation, the boy shrugged and held his hands out, palm up. Daxter took that to mean _I don’t know. Maybe_.

 

                He watched for a minute before the boy brightened a little, only to crouch down suddenly and pick up a rock. The boy threw it at the ground so hard it bounced, then swiped up several more rocks quickly before the first rock hit the ground again.

 

                Daxter stared. “A jacks game?” There had to be an easier way to say that.  Well, there was, sort of; Daxter could do the introductions from now on. 

 

                Dax was rewarded with a slightly frantic nod.

 

                He felt a smile break out over his face. “Yer name’s Jak?”

 

                Nodding again, the boy smiled for the first time. It wasn’t much of a smile, since Jak wasn’t exactly in the best condition, but it was more than Dax had hoped for.

 

                He laughed. “Wait here a sec, Jak, I’ll be right back with some new threads for ya.”

 

                Daxter didn’t actually have far to go, since he’d dropped his rucksack in this same alley when he’d picked up his kit and he always had a spare set of clothes, but he really hoped these would fit his new friend. Jak was bigger than him, after all. After fending for himself so long out in Dead Town Dax was kind of a runt.

 

                The clothes didn’t fit quite perfectly, but Jak didn’t seem to care. He was happy enough to change right in the alleyway. Daxter got a glimpse of a network of scars and an ugly black tattoo over Jak’s heart before turning away until his friend had finished changing. He didn’t think Jak would want him to see that, so he waited until Jak lightly tapped his shoulder before turning back around.

 

                Then the boys looked at each other for a long moment, because Daxter’s plan ended here and Jak hadn’t had a plan to begin with.

 

                “Um,” Dax began finally, just as Jak made an odd sudden movement. Dax shut up.

 

                Jak raised an eyebrow at him.         

 

                “No, you first. Then I’ll finish what I was saying.”

 

                A faint look of confusion marred Jak’s features briefly, but then his face cleared. He cocked his head to one side and raised an eyebrow at Dax again, which Daxter took to mean _What now?_

 

                “Er, that’s what I was trying to figure out,” Daxter admitted. “I’ve actually got a hotel room where my…” He stopped. “Uh, where my… I don’t know what to call them. Where my… foster sister, I guess… and the guy who took me in a while back are staying. I don’t think we wanna go to a hotel though,” he finished quickly. “Too easy to find, ya know?”

 

                Jak didn’t reply, even nonverbally. He just watched Daxter with wide eyes.

 

                It made Daxter a little bit uncomfortable. “I used to live here though. Out on the streets, I mean. I know some places… they’ll check the shelters, but there are other places. There’s one pretty close by where I doubt anyone would look… It’s kinda dangerous to get to, though.”

 

                At the mention of danger, Jak suddenly grinned fiercely and cracked his knuckles.

 

                Dax laughed again. “All right, dangerous route it is. But you gotta protect me, right Jak?”

 

                This time the nod came across as slightly arrogant.

 

                It was well-founded arrogance, as Daxter quickly learned. The part of the city they had to traverse to get to his preferred safe house was in the worst of the ruins that were still actually passable, riddled with metalheads, and prone to falling further apart while he was in it. Usually he tried to go another way, but if he couldn’t avoid this route a lot of running like hell and climbing tended to be involved.  Technically he guessed he could have taken another route this time but this was the fastest one and Daxter still didn't really trust the lack of pursuit.

 

With Jak beside him it was way easier.

 

                Jak could take out a metalhead with one punch. As far as Dax was concerned, that made him the best friend _ever_. Ever in the _history_ of ever.

 

                Daxter kept close behind his buddy. While Jak had seemed incredibly jumpy since Dax had gotten him out of the hospital, and had looked downright scared at the thought of getting recaptured, Jak was clearly in his element while he fought. The fierce grin he wore seemed frozen to his face. Once, a metalhead leapt unexpectedly out at Daxter, and before he could react Jak had already swatted it away with a silent snarl.               

 

                If Daxter hadn’t quite believed in karma before, he sure as hell did now.              

 

                They were nearly at Tess’ place (in record time!) when Daxter got a glimpse of just what Jak had been doing in the basement of Haven Hospital. He’d thought it was odd that his friend didn’t seem all that concerned about the dark eco lying around from the pulverised metalheads, but hey, maybe there was something he didn’t know about it.

 

                There was _definitely_ something he didn’t know about it, he decided as Jak suddenly grimaced and clutched his head and… changed. Suddenly he looked more like something out of Daxter’s nightmares than an elf his own age.

 

                Daxter backed up a couple steps, his sense of self-preservation honed well enough that he couldn’t help but do so, but when Jak only went back to killing metalheads- now snapping dark eco out at them- Dax decided to keep following behind him.  He _did_ stay a certain safe distance away- if he got close enough for the dark eco threads to snare around him, too, Dax assumed it was no longer a safe distance and backed off a bit- but he stayed as close as he could aside from that. Sure, Jak was scary, but he was still killing metalheads. Dax was still safer with him than without him. It was only a matter of minutes before Jak changed back just as abruptly.

 

                Freezing in place, Jak glanced slowly at Daxter. He looked horribly ashamed.

 

                Daxter knew that feeling. It was never good. He didn’t want to see Jak experiencing it, so he said, “Man, Jak buddy, that was _awesome_. I think ya just gave the metalheads a new phobia.”

 

                The smile was uncertain, but it was a smile. Dax was okay with that.

 

                He was more than okay with that.

 

                When they reached an occupied part of the city, Jak froze up, going from a self-assured fighter to a scared kid in no time flat.

 

                He flinched badly when Daxter threw an arm around his shoulders. “Hey, Jak, come on. I ain’t gonna hurt ya. It’s not much further. You’ll like my friend Tess, I think. She helped me out a lot back in the day an’ she knows all the back ways outta the city.”

 

                He wasn’t entirely sure how much of that got through, since Jak was _really_ nervous around so many people, but when Daxter started to walk again Jak stayed beside him so he must have done something right.

 

                Jak looked at him a little funny when Dax headed straight for a bar, though.

 

                Dax found Tess at the bar and waved to catch her attention. Jak hung back a bit as Dax quickly negotiated a room- Daxter had learned years ago that the Naughty Ottsel had a whole warren of back rooms and that several of them had the multiple exits he knew were a necessity in the city. He lowered his voice as he requested one of the ones which he knew not only had a lot of different ways out, but also had a main exit that let out into one of the underground passageways that would take them out of the city entirely.

 

                Tess had a soft spot for Dax, so it didn’t take long before he was waving Jak ahead of him and ducking into the back. Their room was pretty far back so Daxter chattered as they walked.

 

                “I found a way into the back rooms here when I was really young. I used to sleep in a storage room way in the back whenever the weather was really bad and the hotels were booked- I snuck into hotels a lot, but it only worked when there were vacancies- and after a while Krew, the guy who used to run the place, found me. Boy, was he mad… dunno what would’ve happened if Tess hadn’t been there.” He smiled nostalgically, lacing his hands together behind his head. “Ah, that’s all ancient history now though. Tess and I still give each other a hand sometimes. Hey! Here we are, home sweet home.” Daxter kicked open the door to the room.

 

                It was one of the larger rooms, but it was barren enough and close enough to a major exit that there wasn’t any competition for it. Unlike some of the others it wasn’t really furnished, it just had a king-size mattress shoved up against the wall and a lot of assorted junk lying around, but Daxter had figured Jak would rather spend the night in a large room than a comfortable one. 

 

                Daxter flopped down on the mattress, rolled so that he was curled snug against the wall, and yawned theatrically. When he cracked his eyes open again he realised Jak was still standing in the middle of the room.

 

                “Jak,” Daxter said. “Seriously. The mattress is huge and yer not sleepin’ on the floor. Just lie down.” He winked as he added, “I promise to behave.”

 

                The dark glare Jak gave him made him regret adding that last, but after only a little more hesitation Jak did join him on the mattress.

 

                Ten minutes of staring at the ceiling later, still wide awake, while Jak lay on his side next to him and eyed every possible exit a number of times in the most paranoid manner possible, Daxter sighed and sat up.

 

                Jak immediately rolled on to his other side to glance inquisitively at Dax.

 

                “I’m gonna booby-trap the doorways,” Daxter explained, rummaging around in his rucksack. He let out a noise of triumph when he pulled out what he was looking for. They were wrapped in cloth to muffle the noise they’d make, but when Dax tossed the cloth aside it revealed a knot of strings with bells attached. Daxter quickly had the knots undone and looked at Jak again. “If I string these across the doors, no one can come in without us hearing them. Tess taught me.”

 

                Daxter himself had never had anywhere near as much confidence in this trick as Tess did. After all, if Daxter had come across the same trap, he’d just have ducked through the strings. Jak didn’t seem to think of that though, or maybe it was the sheer number of times Dax draped them across each doorway, because after that Jak finally managed to fall asleep.

 

                For a while.

 


	4. I Know A Wall to Scale

Jak didn’t want to go to sleep.

 

If he went to sleep, he reasoned, then he’d have to wake up, and he was afraid that he’d wake up back in the metal rooms. He was afraid he’d wake up and be disoriented and _change_ again. He was afraid he was only dreaming this escape.

 

He was afraid, most of all, that he’d wake up and Daxter would be gone.

 

Daxter talked to Jak. Daxter understood Jak. Daxter used his _name_ \- and not even just sometimes, not just when he was trying to make a point or ensure Jak was listening, Daxter used his name _all the time_.

 

It had been a really long time since anyone had called Jak by his name.

 

He couldn’t even remember how long it had been anymore. It had been while he could still speak, that much he was sure of. It must have been. Otherwise how could anyone have even known what his name was? When Daxter had first asked he hadn’t been sure he remembered himself.

 

There was a lot Jak didn’t remember anymore. He thought he’d been one of the street children called metalkids once. He wasn’t sure if he’d always thought so or if it had been Daxter’s familiar Dead Town drawl that brought the memories back. Jak didn’t think he’d been a metalkid very long, if he had been one, but he couldn’t have said _why_ he thought so.

 

No matter how he tried, any memory from before the metal rooms faded away into an indistinct haze.

 

He didn’t know why they had chosen him to experiment on. He had asked, a long time ago, repeatedly, hoping desperately for an answer each time. First he’d hoped they’d tell him they _hadn’t_ really picked him out just to run an endless series of tests and experiments on, that it had all been a mistake, that they were sorry about it and they’d let him _go_. Eventually, as hope began to fade, he only wanted to know _why_. Why were they _doing_ this to him? Why _him_? Why did they keep forcing him to fight, keep dosing him with dark eco, keep _torturing_ him?

 

The hope had turned to hatred, but he’d kept asking because sometimes he could surprise a guilty look on someone’s face, and that gave hope brief new life.

 

Then Errol had come, and even that hope had died.

 

Jak clearly remembered that day. He’d been in the chair when Errol had entered the room. It had been just after a dark eco treatment, so he’d been strapped down and couldn’t move at all to see who had walked in, and the way everything echoed in the metal rooms he couldn’t be sure where the footsteps were coming from. For that matter, he was never certain things he heard after that much dark eco were even really there.

 

He’d known he wasn’t hallucinating when a hand wrenched his head up painfully. A voice he didn’t know snarled, “Look at me!”

 

He’d tried, he really had, but even after Jak dredged up the energy to open his eyes he couldn’t get them to focus on anything.

 

Errol shook him roughly, then let go. As Jak’s head banged painfully into metal the Krimzon Guard had already started speaking. “My name is Errol, freak. I’m in charge of this outfit.”

 

Hatred flared up and Jak wrenched his eyes back open as he snarled, “ _Why?_ ”

 

“I don’t need to explain myself.” Errol smirked.

 

Jak saw it coming, but could do nothing to defend himself as Errol punched him in the gut.

 

“No one is coming for you,” Errol said conversationally. “You’re not worth saving. This far into the program, you’re not even an elf anymore. Not really.”

 

“You _bastard_ -”

 

A hard slap across his face cut off Jak’s protest.

 

Errol smiled slowly. “I’d tell you to watch what you say, freak, but it isn’t like anyone is ever going to listen to you again.” He laughed darkly.

 

Jak had seen the next blow coming too, but even as he’d wrenched against his bonds in fury Errol’s fist had knocked him unconscious.

 

When he’d woken up back in his cell, the dark eco ache in his muscles was nearly overshadowed by the sharper pain in his throat.

 

He hadn’t even realised what had happened at first.

 

Jak didn’t talk to himself. He had at first, but they’d listened and used it against him later, so he’d quit doing it. While his throat hurt, he was always hurting after a dark eco treatment. He hadn’t thought anything of it.

 

He hadn’t known there was anything wrong- well, more wrong than usual- until Errol had come back and Jak had tried to curse at him.

 

And Errol had laughed.

 

After that, the whitecoats simply turned their backs on Jak whenever he tried to make eye contact long enough to communicate.

 

Jak fought back in other ways, of course; he fought back every way he knew how. Jak quit eating. Errol flooded his cell with dark eco in retaliation. Jak refused to fight for the tests- except that he couldn’t do that, the dark eco wouldn’t let him let himself be attacked, and truth be told he wasn’t sure he could have stopped himself fighting then anyway. He fought the guards when they dragged him out of his cell, going so far as to try and bite and scratch them, _anything_ to make them stop.

 

Errol sent more guards, better armed guards. They stunned Jak, kicked his feet out from under him, and in the end Jak always found himself slammed back against the metal chair. Held down and helpless, Jak struggled against the restraints until the skin of his wrists and ankles tore.

 

Errol laughed at him.

 

Jak pounded on the door and walls of his cell so much that his knuckles bled, feeling only a desperate need to _escape_ , and from the safety and comfort of outside the cell Errol informed him loudly that if he wanted to leave all he had to do was _say_ it.

 

Jak tried to kill Errol what felt like half a hundred times, but even the metal rooms themselves were under Errol’s control. There was no way to win.

 

But even though he knew it was impossible, even though he’d had it proven over and over, even though there really _wasn’t_ anyone coming for him, even though hope was dead beyond all revival and rage had taken its place, Jak couldn’t stop trying.

 

Something in him just couldn’t allow surrender. Even as he drowned in numbing hate, even as Errol made him writhe while dark eco scorched his veins, Jak made a promise to himself never to give Errol the satisfaction of breaking him.   

 

And then Daxter had come for him. Errol had been wrong after all.

 

Daxter didn’t seem to mind that Jak couldn’t read or write or talk. Daxter hadn’t looked at him with fear and hatred the way the whitecoats did, sometimes, when he changed. That had happened barely any time ago at all and yet Daxter was completely comfortable falling asleep right next to Jak.

 

And… if he woke up and Daxter was gone, Jak had no idea what to do. He didn’t know the city. He didn’t know how to leave. He didn’t know a single person beside Daxter. Even Daxter’s friend Tess had acted like the whitecoats had, speaking only to Daxter and not acknowledging Jak in any way. What if the rest of the city was like that? What if Daxter was the only one who knew how to listen to him?

 

What if Errol _hadn’t_ been wrong?

 

No matter how he thought about it, Jak kept coming back to one question- what if he woke up and Daxter was gone?

 

Jak tried to stay awake, tried to stay awake so that he could reassure himself that Daxter wouldn’t just abandon him here. He hadn’t had any real sleep in so long, though. The mattress was so much more comfortable than the floor or the cot. The sound of Daxter breathing beside him was more reassuring than it had any right to be. Most of all, Jak was exhausted.

 

He tried, but eventually he fell asleep.


	5. Open the Streets and Raise the Gates

Daxter remembered nightmares. He’d had them himself when he hadn’t been living outside long yet. He’d even had a few when he was running with Sig’s gang, although he’d tried not to let the other metalkids know. Tess had had them. Keira still had them, sometimes.

But his nightmares, and Keira’s nightmares, and even their nightmares combined, were _nothing_ to whatever was making Jak thrash in his sleep.

 

Daxter hadn’t gotten any sleep yet. He was used to that, though; he’d always had trouble sleeping. He was used to getting by on less than stellar sleep. Samos swore it would catch up to him in old age, but frankly Daxter didn’t expect to experience old age. He figured with his level of curiosity he’d never survive that long. So long as he did all the living he wanted to first, he didn’t much care.

 

Dax didn’t have nightmares anymore,. He tended to barrel through everything weighing on his mind during his waking hours and leave only pleasant thoughts for dreams. He didn’t remember how the other metalkids had gotten each other over nightmares- Dax hadn’t run with a group very long, and they’d almost all been older kids anyway, so it hadn’t been an issue very often.

 

Seeing Jak sweating in his sleep, face twisted into a grimace, Dax regretted for the first time that he didn’t really know what to do with someone caught in a nightmare.

 

He did know that when Keira had a run of nightmares she slept with her favourite wrench nearby. She told him it helped her realise where she was, since she hadn’t discovered her love of mechanics until living with Samos. Jak hadn’t even been free a whole day yet- Daxter didn’t _have_ anything to reassure him with.

 

Aside from the clothes he was wearing, the only tangible thing Jak had now that he hadn’t had that morning… was Daxter.

 

Jak didn’t like being touched, though. Daxter knew that well enough already. Dax couldn’t blame him, based on that basement and some of the stuff he’d read in the journal.

 

But that meant Daxter didn’t know what to _do_.

 

Jak solved the problem for him by waking abruptly, gasping as he immediately rolled onto his stomach. He covered his head with his hands, shaking.

 

Protecting himself. Bracing for a blow.

 

Yeah, Daxter knew that position all too well.

 

Rising to a sitting position, Dax reached out towards his friend and stopped just short of touching him. “Jak?”

 

Jak moved one hand away from his face.

 

“Jak, buddy, it’s okay. It’s Dax, remember me? We’re in the back of the Naughty Ottsel. We’re leaving the city today.”

 

The other hand moved away and Jak twisted his head to look at Daxter. His lips moved, but Daxter didn’t catch the words the first time, so he raised an eyebrow. Jak’s lips moved again.

 

_You’re still here_.

 

“’Course I am,” Daxter said, confused. “Where th’hell would I have gone?” Stretching, he climbed to his feet and offered Jak a hand up. This time Jak took it. He nearly pulled Dax down with him, but got to his feet.

 

“Come on Jak,” Daxter said, beginning to take the belled strings off the doors. “Let’s get out of here. It’s early yet but that’s good, there’s fewer metalheads around this time.” He tilted his head. “’Less you wanna stay in Haven? I mean, I kinda just assumed…”

 

Jak shook his head and headed for the door.

 

“Yeah, that’s what I figured,” Dax said wryly as Jak stopped to motion him past, realising Daxter knew the way out better than he did. Dax kept chatting as he led the way through the maze of hallways. “I, uh, I don’t know if you had anywhere in mind as far as where you wanna go…” He trailed off and glanced at Jak.

 

Avoiding Daxter’s gaze, Jak shook his head.

 

Daxter brightened a little. “You c’n always come an’ stay with me. Well, me and Keira and the old

man,” he amended, grinning, “But _I’m_ the important part.”

 

Jak’s eyes met his before he’d stopped speaking. Jak’s expression was wary, guarded, but the slightest bit hopeful.

 

“Really,” Dax reassured him, navigating around a pile of rubble. The Naughty Ottsel was frequently raided by KG and metalheads alike. Some of the more well-known back corridors were in disrepair. “There’s plenty of- well, okay, no there’s not, but there’s _enough_ room back at Sandover. You can come stay until you figure out what you wanna do, yeah?”

 

Rubbing the back of his neck, Jak nodded. He tried hard to ignore the relief he felt at having somewhere to _go_ , concentrating instead on paying attention to the turns they took. He didn’t expect to ever come back here but it never hurt to be prepared.

 

                Jak glanced suspiciously around as they walked through the corridors together, but nothing and no one else seemed to even be awake, much less following them. Daxter ran through the maze without taking a single wrong turning. His feet still knew the way out by heart, even after all these years.

 

In no time at all they were back out beneath the city lights, Daxter’s preferred underground route having been a bust; there were metalheads crawling all over it. Jak was a little disappointed. He’d really wanted to see sunlight.

 

He could settle for seeing it outside the walls, though.

 

Daxter stopped at a fork in the path and studied the ruined walls for a moment. “Hey Jak, come here. I should show you this.”

 

As Jak joined him, Daxter gestured at the markings on the wall. “Most metalkids can’t read, so this is the system Sig’s old crew came up with. Wherever you see a metalhead gem symbol,” he pointed to an irregular yellow blob, “that’s a path full of metalheads. The Precursor orbs,” here he pointed to a crude egg with a few squiggly lines drawn in, “mark the safe paths.”

 

After a few moments of staring intensely at the marks, Jak glanced around, then pointed to another wall and raised an eyebrow at Daxter. This wall had a Precursor orb, but there were three red lines drawn through it. It looked like something had swiped at it with a claw.

 

Daxter’s smile was weaker than before. “Former safe path. Ain‘t safe now.” He cleared his throat. “Anyway, follow me!”

 

Before Jak could reply Dax had darted off and he had to run after him. Dax was fast. Even though they followed a marked path- they had to cut through ‘former safe paths’ a few times, but it was still clearly an old safe way out- Jak was hopelessly lost within minutes.

 

There were metalheads even on the safe paths. Daxter shrugged and said that was just what Dead Town was like. Besides, the metalkids had defined safe back here; _safe_ to a metalkid generally meant _lower chance of death_. Dead Town was a maze, too, and Jak thought he’d probably have gotten turned around fighting if he were on his own.

 

Once they came across a wall with a different symbol on it. It looked a little like crudely-drawn red eco. Jak slowed to look at it, and Daxter noticed right away and swerved back to stick beside him.

 

Jak pointed at the red eco symbol and tilted his head.

 

“That means it’s mined,” Daxter explained. “Don’t _ever_ go down one of those paths. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone come back.” His expression grew distant for a moment, but then he shook it off and turned back to the business of escaping.

 

When they were nearly to the exit Daxter suddenly became aware that he might have made a terrible mistake, here. Not in breaking Jak out- already Dax couldn’t imagine having done anything else- but in expecting not to run into trouble over it.

 

There were Krimzon Guards patrolling. In Dead Town. In an _abandoned_ part of _Dead Town_.

 

The KG didn’t normally leave the Inner City.

 

Haven Hospital might not have had a technological alarm system, but evidently the old-fashioned one worked well enough, if slowly.

 

If Daxter hadn’t been able to draw the obvious conclusions himself, the guard’s frantic muttering into their communicators would have clued him in moments later.

 

“Subject 103DE2 has escaped. Subject description. Subject on foot. Orders are to capture, repeat, capture.”

 

A thrill of terror shot through Dax as he realised what that meant. A glance at Jak showed that he’d heard and come to the same conclusion Daxter had.

 

The order was to capture, not to kill.

 

That was good, actually, to Dax’s way of thinking. They- it had to be _they_ , Dax would never off and leave someone behind ever again, not even if they asked him to- they would be much harder to take down alive.

 

Normally, Daxter was all for prolonging his time on the planet, but he’d read that journal. Not only did he want to get safely out of the city with Jak, he sure as hell didn’t want to be caught himself.

 

Jak had halted when they heard the guards and was now pressed firmly up against the wall at Daxter’s left, face set in a furious scowl. Another glance at him warned Dax off saying anything.

 

The Krimzon Guards had no kind of warning at all.

 

Dax hadn’t known until then that anger and hatred alone could change his friend into that dark version of himself. There hadn’t been that many metalheads on the way here, though, and because of that there hadn’t been that much dark eco, and still when Jak bolted from the safety of their wall towards the guards with a growl the horns and claws from before had reappeared.

Daxter stared, because the guards were shortly very dead, and holy shit he was pretty sure Jak had just torn some guy’s throat out with his _teeth_ , and really, maybe Daxter should have thought this through a bit more.

 

This time Jak didn’t change back right away. Dax didn’t know why, unless it was just that there were more guards around, but Jak stayed dark and scary and Daxter stayed as close behind his friend as he dared, because Jak was taking down guards before Daxter could even finish registering that the guards were _there_. Dax thought he maybe should have been more concerned about how bloody this escape was becoming. Maybe, but he couldn’t bring himself to be. Daxter hated the Krimzon Guards himself, although obviously- he swallowed as Jak took out yet another guard, this time by driving his claws through her chest as he skidded past on his way to kill her partner- obviously Dax didn’t hate the KG as much as _Jak_ did.

 

For good reason, though, and Dax decided to worry about it later as Jak hesitated at a crossroads. All the KG in the immediate area were dead, very definitely and safely dead, but out of the three paths they could take two were mined and one was former-safe, and Daxter didn’t think Jak could recognise the symbols at the moment so Dax darted past him quickly and waved from the entrance of the correct path.

 

Jak swiped at him as he vaulted past, but it was a slow swipe, and he turned his claws the other way when he actually saw Daxter. It was still unsettling. Daxter made a mental note not to _ever_ move like prey when Jak was in this state.

 

Finally, finally, three turnings and one last dead guard later, Jak ground to a halt, wincing as the dark eco left him. When he was back to normal, he looked disoriented until his eyes locked on Daxter. His gaze sharpened as Dax gestured down another former-safe route and signalled for quiet.

 

Luckily for both boy’s nerves, it seemed they’d already taken care of all the KG sent out to this part of Dead Town. They made it the rest of the way without running into anything more threatening than the metalheads that lived there. After all the guards the metalheads hardly seemed worth the fight.

 

Daxter never lost his way, and Jak had trouble believing they were really out of the city when a short time later they were standing in the ruins of an ancient airlock staring out over the wastes.

 

They were on a hill, so it was easy to see the way the wasteland stretched on seemingly forever. Past the outlying ruins was a vast desert, and past that were the dark smudges on the horizon that had to be the independent villages, and past even that was the shimmer of the ocean.

 

Jak didn’t even realise Daxter wasn’t at his side anymore until the other boy called his name from just around a crumbling bit of wall.

 

“Jak, d’you know how to drive a zoomer?”

 

Curious, Jak shook his head.

 

Dax roared back around the corner astride a bike-style zoomer, grinning as he hovered in place in front of Jak. “Wanna learn?”

 

Jak stared at him, then smiled grimly and went to hop up on the back of the zoomer.

 

“Whoa, no,” Dax said, leaning back. “Not the way to learn, ‘least not on this. See, you’re not really supposed to be taking zoomers out of the city at all, so this one ain’t exactly top of the line. Get on in front of me, I’ll give you a crash course.”

 

Minutes later Dax was regretting his choice of words. Sure, Jak picked up on the steering quick enough, and he skidded around turns like no one’s business, but he didn’t appear to understand the concept of _brakes_. Plus he seemed like running over not just metalheads but the occasional Krimzon Guard who’d plucked up enough courage to brave the Wastes.

 

Daxter hoped he could pass those stains off as rust and peeling paint.

               

In the end, Dax just stuck to shouting directions and keeping an eye out for any metalheads sneaking up on them. He was glad there was still a zoomer out here- back when they’d been part of Sig’s crew together, Tess had suggested they leave them at strategic points around the city for quick escapes. Dax wondered who was still keeping up the tradition. It might even have been Tess herself.

               

Sandover was a good half day’s walk away, but with the zoomer they made it there before the sun had even risen properly. It had been before midnight when they’d left the city, so they beat the dawn back home. That and Jak kept the pedal to the floor the whole way there. Frankly, by the time they pulled up at the edge of the village, Daxter was just glad there wasn’t a whole lot to run into in the wastelands.

 

Dax hopped off the zoomer and stretched. Turning his face to the sky and grinning, he shut his eyes and spun around lazily once. “Here we are, home sweet home. You’ll like Sandover, Jak. Nice, peaceful, really sparsely populated town. Dunno why, but the metalheads leave us alone.” Opening his eyes again, Daxter cocked his head at Jak and grinned crookedly as he added, “All like… eight of us that live here. Congrats, buddy, you have brought the population of Sandover rocketing up to a _whole nine people_!”

 

He wasn’t sure Jak was listening. The other boy was busy staring around the tiny ocean village, looking dazed.

 

“I wanna show you something,” Dax said in sudden inspiration. “Hang on a sec, yeah?”

 

Ducking into Samos’ hut without waiting for a reply, Dax was in and back out with a pack before Jak had time to miss him. “Follow me!”

 

Bounding up the nearby cliffs as easily as he walked on level ground, Daxter led Jak to a spot high above Sandover. From their perch they could see the sun rising way out over the ocean. Back behind them, if they cared to look, they could see the ugly smudge of Haven City in the far distance.

 

Daxter, at least didn’t care to look. Behind them was where the city belonged.

 

Taking a deep breath of the blessedly clean air, Dax smiled as he knelt and opened the pack he’d grabbed from the hut. It was full of fruit and fish. Since coming to live in Sandover Dax had discovered both that he was good at climbing after hard-to-reach fruit and that he had a knack for fishing. He hadn’t had to worry about going hungry ever since. (He still did- it was too ingrained a habit).

 

Jak was probably starving, though. He really ought to do something about that.

 

“Hey, Jak,” Daxter said, tearing his friend’s attention away from the sunrise. Dax held out a piece of fruit. “Hungry?”

 

Jak snatched the fruit out of his hand so fast Dax was vaguely surprised he hadn’t lost a finger. The fruit was gone just as quickly, leaving Jak staring at him with a painfully hopeful expression.

 

Daxter’s heart hurt. No one should look at him like that over a piece of fruit.

 

“Dude, there’s plenty of food. Ya don‘t gotta ask.” Dax dumped the pack out, leaving fish and fruit strewn about. He didn’t worry about it hitting the ground; frankly, the rocky cliff was far cleaner than any blanket he could find on short notice. “Don’t eat too much too fast, though. I did that when I first got here, and man, my stomach was _not_ happy with me.”

 

Seeing that Daxter had no plans to snatch the food away, Jak started in happily on the fish. He listened to Daxter’s advice, though, where Dax hadn’t listened when Samos gave him the same advice.

 

By the time the sun had finished rising the boys had demolished the food between them.

 

Sprawling on his stomach on the rock like a basking lizard, Daxter watched Jak as the other boy licked the last of the fruit from his fingers.

 

Dax was really, really happy he’d disobeyed Samos and ended up going through that Do Not Enter door.

 

He thought about going back to the hut, but it was nice outside, and Samos and Keira weren’t due back for a while yet. Besides, Jak looked honestly happy for the first time out here, or as close to honestly happy as he was likely to look so soon after escaping.

 

“Hey, Jak,” Dax said. “I can give you a tour later. Right now, I vote we get some sleep out here, yeah? E’en when the metalheads do wander into the village they never come up the cliffs, so we’re safe.”

 

Jak looked up at him, hesitated a moment, then nodded. Looking around, he found a rock to lie

down beside, pressing his back against it. He clearly wasn’t comfortable sleeping on his stomach or back. Dax could understand that.

 

Not wanting a repeat of the scene in the Naughty Ottsel, Dax debated inwardly for a few seconds before scooting over closer to Jak. Daxter curled up so that his side was just barely brushing Jak’s chest, pillowed his head on his arms, sighed and shut his eyes. Jak could move closer or not, Dax left it up to him.

 

Some time later Jak did drape his arm tentatively across Daxter’s back.

 

“S’okay, Jak,” Daxter said drowsily. “I don’t mind.” He laughed a little. “Man, you should’ve seen the way we used to sleep sometimes when I was in the Saints and Sinners- that’s Sig’s old crew, a bunch of us metalkids that stuck together for a while. Ya gotta excuse the name, like I said, we were a bunch of kids… but anyway, we’d all pile into a zoomer or an alley or one of the booths at the bar and sleep like that.” Daxter yawned. “Kept th’younger kids from havin’ nightmares, I think, an’ the rest of us got to stay warm. I, uh, I know that sounds kinda weird but… the other kids were kinda all we had, y‘know?”

 

He felt Jak’s nod more than he saw it.

 

“An’ well, before all this,” Dax waved a hand to encompass Sandover and Samos’ hut, “The Saints and Sinners were kinda sorta like a family t’ me.” He stopped, brought a hand up to his face. “Why’m I _telling_ you this?”

 

He knew why, though. Daxter had read the journal. Jak didn’t know that, had no way of knowing that Daxter had a glimpse of what Jak’s life had been like, but _Daxter_ knew and it was only fair that Jak knew something in return.

 

When Jak didn’t move to reply Daxter kept speaking. “Th’gang’s been gone a long time, now. Years, I think. Jus’ me an’ Tess left as far as I know. Maybe a coupla others. Think Nyx tricked’er way into th’Guard at one point, she was gonna try an’ be a spy…” He grinned at the memory. “Dunno who she ’spected t’report to, though. An’ one of th’other kids always followed’er, woulda probably given her away by now.”  

 

Daxter trailed off, realising he was really tired. All the running for their lives and metalhead fighting had really done him in. “Anyway. M’ramblin’ an’ we’re both tired as hell. Go t’sleep, Jak, I ain’t going anywhere.”

 

True to his word, Daxter found himself falling asleep right where he was only moments later.

 

Jak’s arm tightened across his back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been a bit busy with work and with working on original fiction, but I am also now officially published! So that's awesome. There's more information on my profile for anyone who's interested.


	6. Your Horizon Takes Its Shape

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sixty hour work weeks i do not recommend them

He didn’t have any nightmares.

 

He woke up disoriented a few times, but every time Daxter was still there. Still solid and there and reassuring and _real._

 

Jak couldn’t help thinking that it wouldn’t last.

 

Something would happen, something somewhere would get screwed up and he’d end up back in the metal rooms. He really wanted to be wrong. He just couldn’t quite bring himself to believe it. This had been too easy. Daxter was too trusting. Sooner or later, Dax would realise just what he had rescued, and then Dax would abandon him.

 

Sooner or later, the fear and pain would be too much for Jak again, and this time when he changed he would lose control completely and hurt one of the villagers. He’d change and hurt _Daxter_.

 

Jak really, _really_ wanted to be wrong.

 

And as time wore on, as Dax woke up and showed him around the village and found more fruit and then headed for Samos’ hut again, as Daxter showed no fear or hatred whatsoever, as Jak realised that just having Daxter around made him calmer, made the dark eco less overwhelming, Jak started to think that maybe he really _was_ wrong.  That maybe this could last.

 

At least for a little while.

 

Jak worried about meeting the villagers. He’d only met Dax and Tess so far, and Tess had completely ignored him- the only others he’d been in direct contact with since escaping had been the guards trying to capture them both, which didn't exactly tell him anything. Jak didn’t know what to expect from the villagers.

 

Actually, now that he thought about it, Jak didn’t know himself what he looked like. He knew his appearance changed when he did, but he didn’t know what it changed to _or_ from. Did he even look like the other elves anymore? He must, at least a little, or Tess probably _wouldn’t_ have ignored him. Probably wouldn’t have let him sleep in the back of her bar, either.

 

He shouldn’t have been so worried.

 

Most of the villagers were more on edge around Daxter then Jak. When the fisherman saw Daxter, he immediately moved protectively in front of his fishing gear and eyed Dax with poorly-concealed suspicion as Jak was introduced. He barely gave Jak half a glance before going back to guarding his belongings. The mayor and the man Dax introduced simply as ‘Uncle’ acted much the same. The sculptor didn’t seem to care either way, but then, the man didn’t really have any possessions to protect. Dax wasn’t exactly about to walk off undetected with the man’s giant block of stone.

 

The woman Dax introduced as the bird lady (Jak was starting to wonder if any of these people had names, or if Daxter knew them if they did) took one look at Jak, then turned to Daxter and said sweetly, “So you’ve moved up to actually stealing _people_ out of the city? I’m proud of you, sweetie.”

 

Daxter said later that the bird lady was a bit crazy, then went off on a rant about something called a Flut-Flut that Jak couldn’t quite follow.

 

“Sleepin’ arrangements are kinda gonna suck,” Daxter commented back at Samos’ hut, standing in the doorway and surveying the place. “Think you’re gonna have to share the loft with me, buddy.” He gestured at a sort of shelf that cut halfway out into the room at the level where the roof began to slant. A rickety ladder led up to it. “It ain’t the greatest in the world, but it’s still pretty good. It definitely beats th’hell outta sleepin’ in the booths at the Naughty Ottsel. Besides, Samos sleeps down here, and Keira claimed the garage. I would _not_ go in there without permission, by the way.” Daxter shuddered. “Keira will _eat_ you.”

 

Jak cocked his head at him.

 

“Uh, not literally,” Dax said hastily. “She’s just really, _really_ scary sometimes.”

 

Jak’s eyebrows disappeared into his hair. He gestured uncertainly at himself.

 

“Believe me, it’s different,” Daxter said firmly. “ _You_ weren’t aiming at me.” Well, usually, but if Jak didn’t know that Daxter saw no reason to enlighten him. Besides, Dax figured if Jak had ever _really_ been aiming at him, he’d be dead. He wasn’t, therefore Jak hadn’t been.

 

Lost for a reply, Jak followed Daxter back out the door and down to a boat tethered nearby, surprised to see Daxter jump in without hesitating.

 

“Come on, Jak,” Daxter called. “Let’s go, I gotta catch some more fish to replace what we ate.”

 

Shrugging, Jak jumped in the boat too. He trailed a hand in the water and glanced up at Dax.

 

“Yeah, I know how to swim,” Dax said with a grin. “Sig made sure all his crew did ’cause it was the best way for the younger kids to escape the metalheads. E’en if Sig had to throw us into the water himself.”

 

Jak stared at him.

 

Daxter shrugged. “Hey, he always pulled us back out.” He tilted his head as a thought occurred to him. “Uh. D’ _you_ know how to swim?” He glanced at the water, then back at Jak. “ ‘Cause I ain’t all that sure I c’n pull _you_ back out. Yer kinda… bigger’n’me.”

 

Jak’s lips twitched as he nodded, looking down at the water as he ran his hand through it again. His expression might have been a smile. It might not have been.

 

“Oh, good,” Daxter said, relieved. “M’not always so good ‘bout staying in th’boat. It’s tipped a coupla times.”

 

Fishing was actually pretty fun. Daxter was better at it than Jak, but then, as Daxter pointed out, he’d been doing it a lot longer. Dax often abandoned the pole to lurch halfway over the side of the boat and grab a slow-moving fish with a net. Once he even managed to catch one bare-handed.

 

After his first attempt to imitate the trick nearly flipped the boat, Jak wisely stuck to the fishing pole.

 

When Dax decided they’d caught enough fish, they dropped the catch off at Samos’ hut and then headed into the nearby jungle to gather fruit.  Jak was swiftly getting the impression that hunt-and-gather was the lifestyle Daxter was simply used to, since they'd already more than made up for what they'd eaten with the fish.

 

They hadn’t been in the jungle very long when Daxter abruptly yanked Jak behind a tree, startling him badly, which absolutely could not have been good for Daxter’s health.

 

“KG,” Dax hissed in his ear. “Keep quiet!”

 

The annoyed look Jak shot him at that went completely unnoticed. All of Daxter’s attention was on the two Krimzon Guards patrolling the path in the forest.

 

All the fear Jak hadn't seen from Dax before, when Jak had changed, was written in the redhead’s body language now. Come to think of it, Dax had been afraid of the guards before, too, back in the city. He had been less afraid of them then though- maybe because then, they hadn’t been so close to his home.

 

Though Dax couldn’t catch everything the guards were saying, he clearly caught ‘dark eco freak’ and ‘escape’ and ‘dark warrior’ in the conversation. The bottom dropped out of Daxter’s stomach; Jak had been more important than he’d thought to _someone_ if the KG had tracked him all the way to Sandover.

 

The KG were clumsy and loud, crashing through the forest in comparison to the way Dax had moved through it easily, but they weren’t stupid. Daxter’s red hair was out of place. One of them raised his gun and aimed.

 

The bullet tore through the branches above them as Daxter ducked lower, but the damage was done. In an explosion of dark light Jak was up and moving. Daxter stayed where he was, stunned and tense from the blast of dark eco _right next_ to him. The dark eco twined around him briefly, sank into his skin and muscles and made them ache with cold- Dax thought maybe he hadn’t been close enough to Jak before to experience it, and it wasn’t a very good feeling. And this was the same stuff those scientists had pumped into Jak? Damn. Daxter was glad he’d broken Jak out when he had. Hell, he wished he’d been earlier.

 

The guard who’d shot at Daxter only had time to widen his eyes in shock before Jak’s claws tore through his armour into his throat, sending him falling to the ground in a spray of blood.

 

The second guard threw his gun to the ground and turned to run. Jak caught him before he made two paces; the guard’s helmet crumpled with a sickening crunch when Jak’s fist hit it.

 

It had only been a few moments since the shot had been fired. Jak stood over two very dead guards, skin and hair pale and eyes gone black, breathing heavily and staring around for any more threats.

 

Daxter had started to scramble out of his hiding place and run to back Jak up almost immediately, but he hadn‘t closed even half the distance between them before the guards were dead. A metalhead darted out of cover behind him and was immediately killed by a swipe of Jak’s claws. Daxter didn’t care. “Jak, man, ya gotta calm down, come on, we can’t stay here. Let tall, dark and angry go, yeah? We’ll head back to the village, c‘mon.”

 

Familiarity seemed to spark in Jak’s unnaturally dark eyes. A moment later he turned back to normal and staggered a little. Daxter grabbed his shoulder to steady him and turn them back towards the village.

 

As they passed it, without thinking Jak grabbed the scatter gun one of the guards had been carrying.

 

Back at Samos’ hut, Jak checked him over three times for injuries before Daxter got irritated and asked him to back off. “I’m _fine_ , Jak. You got’em. Didn‘t even scratch me.”

 

Jak backed up a few steps but kept looking at Daxter, clearly still unhappy. Daxter realised there was still blood on his friend’s shirt and sighed. “I’m gonna go hunt up some clean clothes.”

 

He vaulted up the ladder into the loft, leaving Jak standing in the middle of the room and looking around with a bit more interest than before.

 

Daxter was going to run into a problem soon if Jak kept needing new clothing. Dax just didn’t _have_ that many clothes, and most of what he did have was nowhere near Jak’s size. He was pretty sure he still had one of Sig’s old shirts somewhere. _No one_ was _Sig’s_ size, though. Daxter wasn’t even sure why the hell he _had_ that. Maybe Keira was right about that kleptomania thing.

 

Or maybe Dax just didn’t want to admit that he still missed Sig.

 

Daxter sighed. He hadn’t wanted to join the Saints and Sinners in the first place, and he hadn’t stayed very long because he just did _better_ on his own, but it had been a pretty bright time in his otherwise pretty dark life. Sig had built a tiny, close-knit metalkid family. Sig had been determined to teach ‘his’ metalkids how to survive no matter the circumstances. He never stopped anyone leaving- in fact, the older kids were encouraged to leave the gang and strike out on their own once they‘d learned the necessary skills. Dax _thought_ , though he'd never actually heard it, that Sig encouraged them to start their own groups to help cut down on metalkid casualties. But Sig never hesitated to take them back, either. He’d been big brother and role model and mentor to their whole little group right up until he’d vanished. One day he’d gone into the wastes on a routine trip and just never returned.

 

That had been after Daxter left, but it still hurt to think Sig was gone. Sig and Tess and the other Saints and Sinners had been a family to Dax long before he’d heard even a whisper of Samos and Keira’s existence.

 

Daxter could still hear Sig’s deep voice belting out advice now and then, when he cared to listen. And right now, Dax realised, Sig would be telling him to get off his ass and make sure Jak was okay. Sig would tell him to stop being so damn selfish and figure out what _Jak_ wanted to do.

 

Dax had spent all his life doing what he wanted. He didn’t know if Jak had _ever_ had that chance.

 

Not bothering with the ladder on the trip down, Dax leapt nimbly from the loft to the floor, rolling as he hit the wood. Jak startled away from him as Daxter sprang to his feet again with a laugh and handed him Sig’s old shirt. “Hey. I know it’s huge, but, uh, you could belt it with your scarf I guess?” Daxter shrugged. “Sorry, man, I don’t have a ton of clothes.”

 

Jak waved that it was fine before changing. Staring up at the loft to give his friend some privacy, Daxter addressed the ceiling. “Hey, Jak, there anything in particular you wanna do while we‘ve still got the place to ourselves? I dunno how long Keira and the old man are gonna be, and we‘ve kinda just been doin‘ what I wanted this whole time…”

 

When Daxter looked back over his shoulder, Jak held up the stolen scatter gun and grinned.

 

“…Right.” Dax stared, then shrugged. “Well, if we’re gonna have KG and metalheads after us, learnin’ to shoot can’t be a bad thing.”

 

As it turned out it wasn’t ‘learning to shoot’ Jak was interested in. Jak knew very well how to shoot. He wanted to make sure _Daxter_ knew how to shoot and maybe get in some target practice on the side. Daxter almost asked, but decided it was Jak’s business as to why he handled a weapon so well. If he wanted to explain, fine. If he didn’t, also fine.

 

By the time Samos and Keira came home, late that night, Jak and Daxter were sound asleep up in the loft after having spent the rest of a day setting up a firing range along the coast. They’d cleared the area of metalheads while they were at it, which gave them a bit more target practice. Jak had even gone back to the jungle briefly to scavenge more ammo for the scatter gun. He hadn’t wanted Dax to come with, and frankly Daxter hadn’t wanted to; he was fairly certain both that Jak had taken the time to dispose of the bodies and that he didn’t really want to know any more.

 

Dax was woken abruptly by the sound of a door slamming and Samos yelling his name, making him jump suddenly, which in turn woke Jak.

 

“ _Daxter_!” Samos hollered from downstairs, probably waking the neighbours into the bargain. Daxter had the sudden impression no one in the village was going to sleep through this conversation. “Get down here right this _instant_ and _explain yourself_!”

 

Yeah, there were days Dax definitely missed Sig.

 

Daxter shrugged at Jak, rolled to his feet and slid down the ladder. Jak followed at a much more sedate pace.

 

“I leave you alone for _five minutes_ and… and…” Samos’ eyes bugged out even more than usual when he caught sight of Jak. For a moment he seemed to have lost the power of speech, but then he resumed his tirade at an even louder volume. “And you run off, with no explanation of any kind, and _leave the city_ , and then you show up bringing that… that… _creature_ who stinks of enough dark eco to bring every metalhead for _miles_ down on our heads, and _what do you have to say for yourself_?”

 

Dax looked between Samos, who looked furious, and Jak, who looked hurt, and Keira, who just shrugged at Daxter. Dax looked back at Samos and cracked a grin.

 

“Can we keep him?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my parents were proponents of sink or swim i swim very very well 
> 
> fangs and claws man: i work with your pets and guess what fluffys genes did not forget fluffy was bred to hunt down rats and badgers and foxes and shit even tiny fangs and claws are TERRIFYING i have got some scars


	7. Stand Together

Samos sputtered incoherently for a moment, then settled for glaring at Daxter.

 

With an effort, Dax maintained his grin. He didn‘t want to show how worried he really was about Samos’ answer. Reluctant as he’d been to come here, Samos’ hut was the first true home he’d ever had, and Daxter really didn’t want to leave it behind.

 

But he already knew he _couldn‘t_ leave Jak behind. Not when he knew that the other elf had nowhere to go. Not after all the fighting they’d already had to do together just to get here and all the fighting Daxter was sure was still to come. Jak was an adventure waiting to happen and Daxter intended to be along for the ride.

 

So he asked again.

 

“Well, _can_ we?”

 

Jak still looked hurt, but Samos threw up his hands in despair and stomped out of the hut muttering to himself, so that was half the problem solved. That left Jak, Keira, and Daxter standing around looking at each other.

 

Daxter never had liked uncomfortable silences, so he shattered this one by exclaiming, “Hey, Jak,I guess we get t’keep ya!”

 

Jak promptly smacked him upside the head with a hurt glare.

 

“Ow! Hey!” Daxter rubbed his head, then noticed Jak’s sudden panicked look and waved him off with a laugh. “Jak, it’s fine, you didn’t really hurt me. Don’t worry so much. Anyway, Keira, this is my buddy Jak. I found him while I was breaking and entering in Haven Hospital. Jak, this is Keira, I mentioned her already. She’s kind of like my sister.”

 

“Unfortunately for me, ‘cause Dax is kind of like the most annoying little brother ever,” Keira said good-naturedly. She studied Jak, looking far more interested in him than Dax was sure he was comfortable with.

 

Jak looked back and forth between the two, finding himself at a loss for how to interact with other elves. He had gotten along fine with Daxter so far, but then, they’d mostly been running and fighting for their lives interspersed with short periods of sleep. He didn't think that was such a great example.

 

On their parts, Daxter and Keira had a solid pseudo-sibling relationship these days, but if they didn‘t tease each other all the time Dax was privately convinced it would fall apart. They’d been skittish around each other at first, with Dax used only to Sig’s crew and Keira not used to other kids at all, but they’d mellowed out over the years they’d lived together. Mostly. Kind of. They still got on each other’s nerves pretty often, but Sandover had a lot of open spaces, so when that happened they usually just avoided each other until they’d both calmed down. It wasn’t like in the city where space was crowded and staying angry at someone was a luxury that could get you killed.

 

Keira was still eyeing Jak with interest. A lot of interest. Jak seemed oblivious, though, and hell if Daxter was going to be giving his friend _that_ explanation anytime soon.

 

When Keira reached out a hand to clap Jak on the shoulder and he flinched back, Keira let her hand drop and didn’t push it.

 

She didn’t ask Jak anything, either, and Dax knew why. Whether she tacked the word ‘former’ on there or not, Keira was a metalkid too, and the single most important rule they had - damn near the _only_ rule they had- was _don’t pry_. Keira probably didn’t even know she still followed it.

 

That was when her attention was caught up by the scatter gun Jak had slung on his shoulder.

 

Jak tried to edge away when Keira grabbed the weapon from him and practically _caressed_ it. Actually, scratch the practically; she was _definitely_ caressing it and there was a suspiciously happy glint in her eyes. Daxter normally only saw her this happy over her beloved zoomer. “Holy crap! This is an R-322 Devastator shotgun! Morph-gun compatible, laser sighting, fifty round capacity, 165 degree cone of fire within two meters…”

 

Keira paused when she realized the boys were staring at her in disbelief. “What? I like guns.”

 

“No, _Tess_ likes guns. _You_ look like you wanna write it a love poem and then take it to the garage for some alone time.” Daxter wrinkled his nose at her, knowing that it always annoyed Keira because she couldn’t figure out just how he did it.

 

“Don’t be such a pervert, Dax! I never get to see tech like this in such great condition. This thing was top of the line right before the metalhead invasion.” Good sense catching up with her, Keira narrowed her eyes at Daxter sceptically. “How in the name of the Precursors did you get a hold of this, anyway?”

 

Jak rubbed the back of his neck, staring down at his boots.

 

“We found it,” Daxter said, which was technically true.

 

“You stole it, didn’t you?” Keira accused, looking up suddenly and eyeing Daxter with suspicion.

 

“I can swear to you we did most definitely not steal that,” Daxter replied defensively, scratching the back of his head. That was also technically true. It wasn’t really stealing if the owner wasn’t alive anymore to argue the point. “Right, Jak?”

 

Jak shot Daxter a puzzled look at first, then caught on and nodded vigorously.

 

Keira debated internally whether to press the issue further, or tinker with the shiny new piece of hardware. It didn’t take long for the scattergun and her curiosity to win out.

 

During the entire conversation she never seemed to notice that Jak’s side of the discussion was conveyed entirely through body language. Considering what Keira was like, it was entirely possible she really _didn’t_ notice.

 

Samos came back, saw that the children’s attention had been hijacked by dangerous weaponry, and stormed back out again.

 

The boys had to promise Keira she could come out to the shooting range with them as soon as they all had the free time before they could go back to sleep. Keira was eager to inspect the scatter gun further, rattling off possible improvements and improvisations as she studied it and even briefly outlining a possible way to outfit her zoomer with one. Keira’s zoomer was her pride and joy and the reason she claimed the garage- she’d built that zoomer from the ground up out of spare parts scavenged from Haven. It ran better than most of the city zoomers thanks to the attention she lavished on it.

 

Daxter also had to promise that he’d help her try and reason out a way to give it a weapons system before she’d let them go back to sleep.

 

The loft wasn’t huge, but after Daxter had shoved some of his stuff to the side both to clear some room and to form a kind of half-assed wall at the edge of the loft around the ladder, he and Jak fit comfortably up there. Keira tossed up a blanket she’d picked up in the city before retiring to the garage. She’d only gotten the one, since as far as she’d known at the time it was just for Dax, but it was big enough that Daxter could spread it on the floor beneath the both of them _and_ have spare cloth to curl up under. Dax had to be kind of careful how he wrapped it around them both, because the slightest hint of restraints made Jak tense and his eyes go wide and suspiciously dark, but he eventually found a way for both of them to curl up comfortably beneath the blanket.

 

In fact, by the time they fell asleep again, both Dax and Jak were a lot more comfortable than they’d been in a long time.

 

Dax was a light sleeper. He stirred when he heard the door click open and shut followed by Samos’ familiar tread crossing the floor below.

 

Unfortunately, Jak was a light sleeper too, and when Daxter wriggled out from beside him his eyes snapped open. Not moving from his defensive curl against the wall, Jak blinked once, slowly, at Dax.

 

“It’s just Samos. Go back t’sleep, I’ll be right back,” Daxter whispered, feeling around in the dark until he managed to snag the journal. “I just gotta talk to old loghead real quick.”

 

Jak reached out briefly, then pulled his hand back and nodded, looking away.

 

Daxter could still feel Jak’s eyes on him as he slipped down the ladder, though.

 

He found Samos checking on his plants at the far end of the room. Daxter cleared his throat and waited until Samos turned to him, then held up the journal.

 

Samos took it and flipped it open.

 

“I found this in the hospital basement,” Dax said, putting a challenge in his tone. He didn’t bother to keep his voice too quiet. He didn’t want Jak to think he was talking about him behind his back, even if he kinda was. Dax _did_ pitch his voice a little lower so that it wouldn’t carry up to the loft very well, though. “The number on the cover was the same number on the door of Jak’s cell. I read part of it when I left the hospital, and then I went back for him.”

 

Samos’ expression grew more disturbed as he read through the journal. He had only skimmed a short way into it before shutting the notebook with a heavy sigh, hesitating, and then handing it back.

 

“You did the right thing, Daxter,” he admitted grudgingly. He rubbed his forehead. “I…don’t truly see how you could have done anything else. However, the _consequences_ …” Samos shut his eyes. “You have no idea.”

 

Daxter waited, but Samos only murmured, “No idea,” one more time before falling silent.

 

After a few minutes Daxter realised that Samos wasn’t going to say anything else. Dax had made his point, though, and he could hear Jak starting to stir again up in the loft, so he shot Samos one last fierce look and darted back up the ladder.

 

This time, Daxter pulled the ladder up behind him, which he hadn’t done since he’d first come to live with Keira and the sage. The first few weeks Dax had lived in Sandover, Samos had hardly seen the boy; Daxter would dart up to the loft at all times of day and night, often for no discernible reason, and draw the ladder up so that neither Samos nor Keira could reach him. Samos supposed it had to do with the reason the boy had finally agreed to come to Sandover. Daxter still flatly refused to explain whatever it was that had made his last two winters in Haven City bad enough that he’d finally accepted Samos’ offer.

 

Samos sighed as he listened to his younger charge settling back down upstairs. Every day, he was more and more sceptical of Onin’s prophecies.

 

Up in the loft, Daxter replaced the journal in his favourite rucksack, safely hidden, without Jak seeing it. For some reason he couldn’t quite define Dax didn’t want Jak to know he had it.

 

Jak hadn’t moved since Daxter had gone down the ladder. He’d shut his eyes at some point, but they flickered open again when Dax flopped back down beside him.

 

“M’back,” Daxter reassured him.

 

Jak made the same odd reaching motion he had before, yanking his hand back before touching Daxter. Dax raised an eyebrow and came to a conclusion.

 

“It’s okay, you know,” he said conversationally, ducking under Jak’s arm himself and pressing closer. Jak’s arm tightened around him immediately, just as it had back on the cliff. “If you…” Daxter hesitated, not entirely sure he wasn’t about to plunge into a subject he would regret, but then softened his voice and finished, “If you need to, to remember you’re not still back there, I don’t mind.”

 

Swallowing hard, his expression ashamed, Jak closed his eyes and nodded. His hand clenched in the fabric of Daxter’s shirt.

 

“S’fine,” Daxter murmured again, leaning into Jak’s solid warmth a little to back up his statement. “Really, Jak. I understand.”

 

Daxter didn’t, not really, but he had some idea from the journal and that was enough. If Jak needed to know Daxter was there in order to sleep, then Dax didn’t have a problem with it.

 

Plus, though he doubted he’d ever admit it outside the privacy of his own head… Daxter slept easier knowing Jak was there, too.

 

When Dax fell asleep again he dreamed he was roaming the streets of Dead Town with Sig and Tess and Jak and Keira, clearing out the metalheads.

 

Jak didn’t dream at all.


	8. Long Road to Ruin

                By the next morning, Samos seemed to have forgotten he’d ever protested Jak’s presence.

 

                Daxter tried not to worry about it, but it was hard when he was still half-afraid that the sage was going to kick _him_ out, never mind Jak.

 

                Jak woke before everyone else and found himself at a loss for what to do. His life had been strictly scheduled for so long he didn't know what he _ought_ to do when we woke up.

 

                He couldn't say he missed it, but that did mean he spent the better part of an hour staring at the wall until Daxter finally woke up.

 

                Though Daxter and Keira didn't know it, Jak was surprised to learn that the makeshift family actually did have a loose schedule. In the evenings they were free to do whatever they wished, but each morning was spent fishing and hunting. Sandover was far enough from Haven that it had to be self-reliant. That meant everyone who lived in the village was responsible for finding their own food- and in their case, the three of them were expected to provide for Samos as well in return for his having put a roof over their heads.

 

                Afternoons, Samos insisted they all have lessons in writing and reading, which at least told Jak why Daxter knew how to read. It startled Jak to realise that Samos intended to include him in those lessons, but after his initial outburst the sage never again mentioned any reservations he had about Jak.

 

                In the evenings the three were left to their own devices. Keira raced them to the new gun course.

 

                “Normally, she holes up in the garage for the night about now,” Daxter explained to Jak as Keira hefted the scatter gun, getting a feel for its weight.

 

                Keira snorted. “Don’t let Daxter fool you. He’s just as interested in making that zoomer run better as I am. I’m just better at working on it, is all,” she finished with a challenging glance at Dax.

 

                “Yeah, yeah,” Daxter waved off her comment. “Keira loves her machines, bathes in blue eco, blah, blah, blah.”

 

                “At least _I_ bathe,” Keira shot back as she aimed the scatter gun at the first of the straw targets, squeezed the trigger, released and blew all but one of them away.

 

                While she went to fix up targets (they weren’t hard to make, thankfully), Daxter waved his arms wildly and shouted after her. “I do _too_ bathe!”

 

                “Falling off your boat once a day doesn’t _count,_ Dax!”

 

                Keira wasn’t a bad shot. She was nowhere near Jak’s level of skill, and Daxter would surpass her after a little more practice, but she wasn’t terrible either. All of them took to guns really well.

 

                Daxter took entirely too much delight in how much that horrified Samos.

 

                Samos, for his part, watched in wonder at how easily the youngsters took to each other. When it had been just Daxter and Keira, they’d been uneasy around each other, always the slightest bit unbalanced in some indefinable way. Oh, they got on well enough, teasing each other as if they were true siblings, but there had always been something _missing._

 

                Jak seemed to be that ‘something missing.’ He steadied them. Having a third person brought their easy-going camaraderie into a true balance for the first time. It wasn’t a _perfect_ balance, but it was nearer than Samos had ever expected to see in his lifetime.

 

                When Jak grew upset or angry enough to change, which was inevitable, Keira was afraid and it showed. Daxter wasn’t, and that showed as well. It was Daxter who would lead what he dubbed Dark Jak away from the village and into the jungle where the two of them could kill metalheads until Jak calmed enough to revert, and then the two would give the metalhead gems to Keira to sell the next time she went to the city with Samos.

 

                Samos was almost positive the boys were hunting more than just metalheads, but even if he could have proven it he didn’t think he would have. Everyone who lived outside of Haven City, and most people who lived _in_ it, had ample reason to hate and fear the Krimzon Guards. Jak and Daxter just had better reasons than most- and were better able to do something about it.

 

                Jak was, not surprisingly, the best fighter of the three by an impassable distance. He encouraged the other two to go to the limits of their abilities. Samos was ambivalent about that- he’d rather they lived in a time of peace, but they didn’t, and what Jak taught the other two was a matter of survival.

 

                Dax was a master of true survival skills. He had what a kit packed at all times, full of fishing gear and fire starters and warm clothing and other assorted supplies. He made sure Jak and Keira each had a kit as well and drilled them in the myriad different ways to get out of the hut quickly. To Dax, there was no such thing as paranoia; he felt he was only being realistic. Samos wondered sometimes just how many times Daxter had to make a fast escape in the past to believe so firmly that they _needed_ those escape plans. With Daxter’s coaching, Samos could be confident that should something ever happen to him, his children could survive even in the middle of the wasteland desert if they had to. The sage wouldn’t have been the least bit surprised if Daxter could squeeze water from a rock.

 

                None of the three were particularly patient, but Keira had far _more_ patience than either of the boys and taught them to exercise what little bit of common sense they _did_ have. She also insisted they both learn how to repair and take care of a zoomer. Jak and Daxter would never be quite as good with zoomers as Keira, but then, Keira and Dax would never be as good at fighting as Jak, and Keira and Jak would never be as good at escaping impossible situations as Daxter. It was Daxter’s idea to add a sidecar to their zoomer, and Jak approved, but it was Keira who actually worked out how to do it after cannibalizing Jak and Daxter‘s escape zoomer for parts.

 

                The three could, and did, make up for each other’s faults.

 

                After the first time Jak was panicked enough to change in Sandover itself the villagers wanted nothing to do with him. Although Samos worried about the effect that would have on the boy, especially since the villager’s dislike quickly spread to Daxter and Keira when it became clear they wouldn’t abandon their friend, the three seemed oblivious. They just spent more time together on the gun course or in the garage or out fishing.

 

                They still had fights; that was inescapable. Daxter and Keira had always bickered, and sometimes Keira didn’t give enough respect to Jak’s dislike of anyone but Daxter touching him and ended up upsetting him, and sometimes Daxter went off to sulk after Jak showed him up at the gun course. Sometimes Keira grew incredibly upset over how Jak never seemed to have a problem with sleeping beside Daxter but would panic if she so much as went to pat him on the back. That was probably the fight that took the longest to clear up, because it was impossible for Jak to clearly explain why he was only okay if it was Daxter. Even that was resolved eventually when Samos took Keira aside and told her quietly where Jak had been and that it had been Daxter who got him out. What he actually told her was a highly edited version of what he’d pieced together, but it brought the point across.

 

                Jak did try a number of times to sleep somewhere away from Daxter. He tried sleeping outside the hut, on the cliff, across the loft- but he never could get any decent sleep without his friend nearby. Samos saw him trudge back, exhausted, expression defeated, time after time and return to the loft and Daxter. It would almost have been touching if Samos hadn’t been aware of the kind of deep psychological damage it indicated. Jak should have felt secure enough to fall asleep by himself; he no longer could. Samos didn’t even want to contemplate the kind of treatment that would cause such a lasting effect.

 

                He couldn’t bring himself to entirely approve of Jak’s influence on Daxter, either. The redhead had always been halfway feral, owing mainly to his upbringing but partly to his nature, but he’d never before been such a willing participant in violence. Samos was acutely aware he should have been seeing active pursuit of Jak by now. He knew why he wasn’t. Daxter had never taken so long to hunt before, and even an extra mouth to feed didn’t warrant _that_ much extra time.

 

                But for all the new problems and complications the boy had brought to their lives, Samos eventually found himself caring for Jak as much as he did his daughter and foster son.

 

                The boy didn’t sleep well. He slept _better_ with Daxter around, but he never slept _well_ , and after the third time Samos had been watering his plants when Jak ventured as silent as always into the main room of the hut in the dead of night Samos decided he really needed to talk to the boy. It had been weeks and Jak was still as skittish as ever.

 

                In fact, the boy spooked so easily that Samos had to try handle the situation delicately. He wasn’t very good at handling situations delicately- one had only to look at the fiasco that had entailed taking Daxter in to see that- but he’d have to try.

 

                The fourth time Jak woke up in a sweat, startled but not so startled that he needed Daxter awake, Samos raised an eyebrow at the boy as he reached the ground level and said, “Jak,” in greeting.

 

                Jak’s shoulders tensed at the sound of Samos’ voice, but he nodded a return greeting.

 

                Samos sighed. It seemed Jak would never forget the way Samos had first welcomed him, even if the sage had come to regret it. Well. Mostly regret it. He still didn’t think it was a good idea for someone so saturated with dark eco to live with anyone else, and he especially worried about the possible effects on Daxter. Like it or not, willing participant or not, Jak still drew dark eco and metalheads to him like moths to flame, and that was not safe. For any of them. It was _particularly_ unsafe for Daxter, with as much time as he spent with Jak.

 

                But Jak was the least safe of them all, and none of that was Jak’s fault. The boy deserved at least a chance at a normal life.

 

                “Jak,” Samos said again after Jak had been standing motionless in the doorway for quite a few minutes. Jak didn’t look at him, but his head tilted just enough to show he was listening. “While we are both awake, I had hoped to talk with you.”

 

                The sudden defeated slump to Jak’s shoulders made the sage regret his choice of words.  The boy had long since stopped flinching at such flippant turns of phrase from Daxter and Keira, but it seemed he was still especially sensitve about Samos' words.

 

                Determination flared anew. “About that,” Samos clarified, and now Jak turned to look at him, one eyebrow raising skeptically.

 

                Samos pinched his eyes shut, but opened them a second later when he realised just how counterproductive that was. “Jak, my boy. I doubt Daxter thought to tell you, but I am a healer. I was trained at-” Samos caught himself before he could say Haven Hospital, but Jak’s eyes narrowed and he took a half step backwards anyway. Samos let out another sigh. “It hardly matters where I was trained at.”

 

                The only response he got was a raised eyebrow and a silent snort.

 

                Right. Jak didn’t trust healers. Of course, Jak didn’t trust anyone at all save Daxter and sometimes Keira, but he _especially_ distrusted healers. With good reason.

 

                Samos realised he hadn’t planned this conversation out well at all.

 

                He might as well cut straight to the point, then. “There may be a way for you to speak again.”

 

                Jak drew back another half a step, his eyes widening and then narrowing again, but Samos had seen the split-second flare of hope and longing, strengthening his concern. Jak should never have been put in a position where he longed to be able to do something so simple as speak his thoughts out loud.

 

                “I didn’t want to get your hopes up before,” Samos continued, holding up a hand. “I am not sure it is fair to you to do so even now.  The method I know may still not work, and even if it does, it will take half a year or more for you to learn it.”

 

                Jak’s expression grew thoughtful, then determined, then demanding.

 

                “I can’t learn any more about it than I already have,” Samos cautioned, making himself comfortable now that Jak was no longer acting ready to either tear out of the room or snap and go Dark at any misstep the sage might make. “It would be unwise to let anything slip in the city that might indicate I am harbouring anyone mute. There is still quite a search on.”

 

                Jak winced, paused, then looked at Samos warily.

 

                “I have no intention of leading them here,” Samos assured him quickly, eyeing the boy and hesitating. This was awkward for him. “Even were it not for the danger it would put my daughter and Daxter in, I wish to see you safe for your own sake, Jak. You have proved you deserve that much.”

 

                The disbelief that filled those blue eyes, before Jak blinked and his expression went unreadable, was painful to see.

 

                “You deserve that much,” Samos repeated, because Jak seemed to need to hear it. “There is a method called oesophageal speaking. I assume you’ve heard Daxter speak while belching?” The sage’s expression grew briefly irritated; he couldn't help himself.

 

                Jak smiled briefly before nodding. 

 

                “This is essentially the same thing,” Samos said, and then held up a hand to stave off any questions. “You will have to learn to force air into your oesophagus and out through your mouth. Done properly, it should cause the oesophageal walls to vibrate and produce a voice.” Samos started to turn back to his plants. “Unfortunately, Jak, that’s all the help I can give you. Normally, one would be assigned a speech therapist to teach the method, but… that is not possible.” He glanced back.

 

                Jak still looked determined.

 

                Samos smiled to himself and returned to tending his plants. He heard Jak make his way slowly back up to Daxter.

 

                The sage’s smile grew when he heard the soft sounds Jak was trying to make as he returned to the loft.

 

                Samos couldn’t say how much it would help in the long run, or even if Jak could do it at all- usually speech therapists and regular appointments with an expert were an absolute necessity- but it was a start. It gave Jak back a little of the control he’d been made to feel he’d lost forever.

 

                For his part, Jak was startled when he reached the top of the ladder and found Daxter lying flat at the edge of the loft. It was clear from his position that the other boy had been eavesdropping.

 

                Daxter’s wide grin as he scrambled to his feet made that even clearer, as did the way he grabbed Jak’s hand to tug him back towards their sleeping area, demanding in a quiet voice, “Spill, Jak, lemme know what’s goin’ on!”

 

                Jak raised an eyebrow at Daxter, trying hard not to flinch as the other’s boys hand closed around his wrist. From the way Daxter let his hand go almost immediately and darted backwards to the sleeping area, he didn’t think he’d succeeded.

 

                “Y’caught me,” Daxter said, cheerfully, “I already heard, I was up here listenin’.” He tilted his head at Jak, still grinning as he collapsed backwards onto the blanket. "So? Whaddya think? Gonna be talkin' as much as me soon?"

 

                Jak smirked and nodded.

 

                Dax rocked back to his heels, looking up at Jak imploringly. "So c'mon! Try! Practice makes perfect an' all that, yeah?"

 

                If Keira noticed anything different about Jak after that night, she showed no sign of it. Daxter presumably noticed, with the amount of time he spent with Jak, but he didn‘t say anything either. The only time he came close to commenting to the sage was one night not long after when he jumped down the ladder to demand some of Samos’ green eco salve.

 

                “Jak’s got some really nasty scarrin’ on his wrists an’ ankles that he’s been hidin,’” Daxter said, staring at Samos challengingly. “That salve of yours would really help. If you really want to help.”

 

                Samos gave him the salve, Daxter disappeared back up the ladder, and no one brought any of it up again within Samos’ hearing. The children functioned as well as ever together.

 

                The three children- _Samos’_ three children, because whether he wanted them to be or not, they were undeniably his now- always managed to come through things together in the end.

 

                The three of them were perfectly content just to have each other.

 

                It was a damn good thing, too, because one day Samos left for Haven City and never came back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oesophageal speaking is a real thing, and the reason Samos is so reticent about it is that it really is damn near impossible to learn without the benefit of regular speech therapy and a good teacher. 
> 
> That said, this is a setting where elves are being overrun by metal monsters and people do magical experiments in hospital basements. I felt safe enough in giving myself some leeway on the healing here.


	9. The River

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This quote is kinda what got into my head and spurred the whole fic, even though I don't really listen to this band- and I'm Taoist, so it took some researching before it even made sense to me-, so:
> 
> To the praying mothers, the worried fathers- let your children go. If they come back they'll come home stronger- and if they don't, you'll know.
> 
> -Good Charlotte, 'The River'

 

 

"It's been over a week," Keira said, chewing her lower lip as she stared at Haven City on the horizon. "Daddy's never gone this long. Not without taking us with."

"Y'mean, takin' _you_ with," Daxter corrected, lazily resettling his fishing pole. Keira had made the mistake of telling him he couldn't fish from the top of their cliff at the beginning of the week. Now, armed with a ridiculously long fishing line and a whole lot of wishful thinking, Dax was determined to prove her wrong. "Me an' Jak are happy to stay here, babe. Right, Jak?"

Jak glanced up, nodded, and went right back to cleaning the scatter gun.

"Anyway, you're overreactin'," Daxter added. "Ol' greenstuff probably just took longer than he thought, that's all."

Daxter didn't admit that he was worried too, because Daxter never admitted he was worried. Keira could tell, though, by the anxious glances Dax snuck back in the direction of Haven, the same way he looked at Jak when his friend turned Dark and no one else was brave enough to go near him.

Sometimes, on a bad day like that, the boys would exchange a glance Keira still couldn't decipher and vanish into the woods without her. Those were the days they tended to come back with more scatter gun ammo and furtive, secretive looks about them.

Keira didn't go into the woods alone anymore. She wasn't naïve. She was aware that Daxter had stolen Jak as far as the Krimzon Guards were concerned, and that the guards had tried more than once to come after the boys, and she was _especially_ aware that despite all that she hadn't actually _seen_ any KG. She'd only seen her boys look at each other with those determined expressions and then come home bloody and triumphant hours later.

Samos and Keira both pretended not to know why no KG ever made it into the village anymore.

It was hard to tell from so far away, but the smog that always hung around Haven City looked darker. Daxter and Keira each privately worried over what it could mean. Jak didn't seem to particularly care.

Finally unable to sit still any longer, even with the distraction of trying to prove Keira wrong about just where he could and couldn't catch fish from, Daxter sighed and jumped to his feet. "You said you were almost done with the jetboard, right? Let's take it out for a test spin!"

Fishing and fighting temporarily forgotten, they spent the rest of the evening tweaking Keira's pet jetboard project until they were exhausted. That wasn't unusual- Samos did often leave for days at a time, and they often slacked off a bit on hunting and fishing to play with Keira's projects.

This day was different. Usually the three could throw themselves into any activity, lose themselves in it and in each other's company, and the worry would go away for a while- and in Jak's case, even the dark eco would abate briefly.

This time, they kept catching each other throwing nervous glances at the sky and at Haven on the horizon.

It was a no moon night, and though they would never admit it, the superstitions of Sandover had crept into Daxter and Keira over the time they'd lived there. New moons, dark nights, were unlucky.

They had no way of knowing how much deeper the darkness would be this night.

Keira slept in the hut that night.

The loft she usually left to the boys- Jak could get kind of territorial about it sometimes, especially when they'd been fighting enough that he had a build-up of dark eco in his system. He'd been mortified the first time he'd growled at Keira for daring to try and go up there when he wanted to just go to sleep. He obviously hated feeling so possessive of 'his' space, and he hated that he couldn't seem to _help_ it, but he stopped worrying about it so much when Daxter pointed out that Keira could be just as bad about the garage and with way less excuse.

All the same, Keira preferred to leave well enough alone.

But none of them wanted to let the other two sleep too far away when they were all uneasy, and Jak felt even more responsibility for his friends than the other way around. Part of him was _still_ waiting for them to actually realise what he was and kick him out of their strange little foster family.

If he were honest with himself, Jak had to admit that he still half-expected to be turned back over to the hospital if his friends and Samos stopped to think about it. He'd do anything to prove to them that he was on their side, that he was worth their attention. Their friendship. 

Dax and Keira could tell how uneasy he was because tonight he waved Keira up the ladder ahead of them and then pulled the ladder up, which was unusual. He and Dax hadn't bothered with the ladder since the first week Jak had lived with them- and they never shared the loft.

Keira knew better than to fall asleep next to where Daxter and Jak curled up for the night, even when Jak had invited her up. Sometimes, when even Daxter couldn't keep the nightmares away, Jak woke up in a panic and couldn't prevent himself going Dark. When that happened, the only one who could calm him down was Daxter, and having anyone else in his line-of-sight would only upset Jak further. That was unsafe for everyone involved. Well, except maybe Daxter himself. Dax was the only one Jak still seemed able to recognise when he was caught in the thrall of dark eco.

Instead, while Jak and Dax claimed their usual spot against the wall, Keira found a relatively clear space across from them. The loft was getting crowded these days with both Jak and Daxter's belongings strewn all over it. Keira and Samos didn't come up without permission, the same way no one came into Keira's garage without permission, so she was a little surprised to see all the clutter. Most of it was pushed off to the side to build a makeshift barrier at the edge of the loft. In fact, once Jak set the ladder sideways on the wooden floor, they had a barricade between them and the rest of the hut. It would still be easy to get out, none of them would have been comfortable otherwise, but it did provide an illusion of safety.

Keira hadn't realised how unnerved Dax actually was until she realised he was going to sleep with his rucksack on. Exchanging a glance with Jak, Keira shrugged and grabbed a pack herself. Jak did the same.

If there was one thing they'd all learned from past experience, it was that they could never possibly be too prepared. The boys had some trouble finding a comfortable position while both of them had packs on, especially since Jak had tried sleeping without his back to a wall and discovered that he couldn't anymore, but they eventually managed to fall asleep wrapped loosely in their oversized blanket. Keira found a place to sprawl nearby, close enough that she could reach out and touch Dax, but far enough that she wasn't poking Jak's panic button.

Their precautions proved to be well-founded. Sometime late in the night, Daxter woke up to Jak shaking him frantically.

"Wha-" Daxter started to say.

Jak clamped a hand over Daxter's mouth, shook his head, and pointed downward.

Daxter started to roll to his feet, but Jak was in the way, still hovering over him. When Dax shot his friend an annoyed glance he realised something was really, _really_ wrong. There was way too much light. The wrong kind of light. Flickering, uneven light.

 _Fire_ light.

Wide awake now, Dax scrambled out of the protective circle of Jak's arms and shook Keira awake.

"We gotta leave," he hissed as she blinked her way back to awareness.

Her eyes widening as she, too, noticed the quality of the light, the last bit of sleep fog shredding, Keira nodded, adjusted her pack and grabbed the jetboard as she stood up. They went to join Jak where he was crouched at the edge of the loft.

Jak's face was twisted in a snarl as he gestured towards the first floor. Dark figures milled in and out of the light, metalhead gems catching reflections every now and then. Taller figures were mixed in.

The taller figures, Dax noticed with a thrill of horror, looked like Dark Jak.

He didn't have time to really think about that before they were spotted.

With a roar, the first of the metalheads leapt. It couldn't quite reach the loft, instead crashing back down into the confusion, but it was enough to snap the three friends out of inactivity. Jak changed and leapt off the loft with a silent roar, diving straight into a metalhead. His claws drove through its head and he twisted to attack the next enemy, tearing flesh and blood away from the first as he spun.

"Garage," Daxter hissed at Keira, before grabbing the scatter gun and nimbly jumping out into space himself. Unlike Jak, Daxter's hands caught one of the rafters, and he used his momentum to swing himself up and right through the thatched roof. Past experience had taught him that the loft wasn't anywhere near too high to jump from. Dax rolled as he hit the ground, bruised but not seriously injured, and scrambled to his feet to bolt for the garage himself.

Keira must have used Dax and Jak for a distraction, because the zoomer rumbled out of the garage just as Daxter reached it and Keira reached out to haul Dax on. He immediately jumped from the bike itself into the sidecar. They spun, throwing up a plume of dirt, and went back for Jak. Daxter had to yell his name five times before Jak finally snapped out of it and sprinted for the zoomer, vaulting on behind Keira.

As they sped away from the village, Daxter let off several rounds behind them, feeling sick at the sight of Sandover burning.

Samos and his collection of orphans had lived on the edge of the village. The chances anyone else had survived weren't just low, they were nonexistent.

Twisting to look behind them again, fighting down the howling emptiness in him at Sandover on fire and fading fast into the night, Daxter hissed as he saw that the metalheads and dark creatures were following them. He swung the scattergun up, let off a few well-paced rounds, and watched as the fallen first wave of pursuit tripped the enemies behind them.

Jak was still crackling with dark energy, snarling as he hurled bolts of dark eco in their wake. Daxter's bones and muscles ached with cold from the close proximity to so much dark eco. In front of Jak, pressing the pedal as far as it could go, Keira's eyes were wide and terrified in a dead-white face. She abruptly wrenched the entire zoomer sideways, sped through a narrow cleft in a cliff into a network of canyons Daxter hadn't even known were there, and forced the horde to come after them one at a time while she increased the distance between them.

Now, each time Daxter fired, each time Jak fought, a line of enemies fell and tangled up the ones behind them. By the time they zoomed back out of the maze of canyons and gullies Keira had steered them through there was no one left on their tail. Some indeterminable time after that, Jak came back to normal and slumped against the mechanic, breathing heavily and looking utterly spent.

Keira sped across the wastes for a long time anyway.

By the time they found somewhere they felt safe enough to stop it was late in the morning, and the sunny sky seemed utterly incongruous with the way their day had begun. There'd been more metalheads on their flight through the wasteland than even Jak had ever seen before, and more of those not-Jak creatures as well.

At least metalheads weren't usually intelligent enough to reason and plan and track. The not-Jak creatures were.

And he hadn't been sure at first, but now Dax was positive that the creatures were after Jak. They were being deliberately followed and Dax and Keira alone just didn't warrant that.

Jak did.

 

 


	10. The Moment to Fight

 

While Keira started a fire in the cave they’d found, Jak used a massive rock to block the entrance and seal them in. They'd all be made uncomfortable by the lack of an easy exit, but they'd be a lot safer, too, and safety came before comfort. By the time Jak went to sit down next to the fire with them Keira was sitting there with her head in her hands, zoomer parked safely behind her, while Daxter rifled through his rucksack.

 

When he pulled out the old stained journal and Jak caught sight of it, his expression changed from worried to devastated. He backed away from the ring of firelight until his back hit the cave wall.

 

Daxter had hoped Jak wouldn’t know what it was, that maybe Jak had never even seen the journal before, but it was clear that wasn’t the case.

 

“I’m so sorry, Jak,” Dax said rapidly, guilt burning a hole in his gut. “I should have burned this damn thing. But, if I hadn’t found it I wouldn’t have met you, and then I… I dunno, I guess I thought maybe there’d be something in here that could _help_ you and I‘m sorry, I shouldn‘t have kept it but I did, and now I think we need it.”

 

Keira looked back and forth between them, bewildered.

 

Daxter ignored her and kept talking to his best friend. “Jak. Jak, I’m really sorry, I really am, but… those things back in… in the village, they looked like Dark Jak, man, and we really, _really_ need to know. In the interest of all of us not dying horribly an’ all.”

 

Jak’s gaze dropped to the ground and he wouldn’t look at Daxter, but he nodded.

 

Sighing in relief, Daxter opened the journal for the first time in months. The escape from Haven had been a lifetime ago and Daxter hadn’t taken the journal out of his rucksack since showing it to Samos that night.

 

When Keira leaned over to look at it Jak’s head snapped up and his eyes widened.

 

“No,” Daxter said gently, moving away. “The less people that see this, the better. It’s not fair to Jak.” Daxter’s own heart ached looking at the damn thing. It had been different when he first found it; he’d taken it out of pure curiosity, and while he’d been stunned at the clinical detachment the journal showed then it was different now. It was worse now. Jak was his _friend_ now, and it was horrifying to read the way the scientists had written about his friend as if he weren’t an elf. Daxter didn’t want to know how far the ‘dehumanizing’ part of the project went. He _definitely_ didn’t want anyone else to see the journal. Jak didn’t deserve that.

 

Unfortunately, Daxter realised a moment too late that Keira had finally been pushed too far. She’d always had a quick temper and now she’d had enough. Narrowing her eyes at Daxter, she grabbed for the journal.

 

Daxter narrowly avoided her and darted to Jak’s side.

 

“I said _no!_ ” he barked. “Please, Keira! How often do I ask something like this?”

 

“Never,” Keira growled, and flung out an arm. “But how often do we get chased out of our home by creatures that _look like Jak_?”

 

Jak flinched.

 

“That doesn’t _mean_ anything!” Daxter snarled, bristling. “Jak’s our _friend_ , he would _never_ -”

 

“I don’t _know_ that!” Keira glared at Daxter. “I don’t know anything _about_ him, Dax! You just _showed up_ with Jak one day claiming you broke him out of a hospital basement, how do I even know that’s true? These things look like him, they‘re following him, they _destroyed our home!_ ”

 

“It was Jak’s home too!” Daxter shot back.

 

“No it wasn’t!” Keira's on her feet and really yelling now, and as Jak flinched back further against the wall Daxter moved protectively in front of him. “Jak never cared about Sandover, he only ever cared that _you_ lived in Sandover!”

 

“Stop talking about him like he can’t hear you, he’s right here!” Daxter looked like a salamander trying to defend a dragon, but it was clear he meant every word he said. “Jak cares about you and Samos and the village too!”

 

When Jak let out a low distressed whine and punched the wall to get their attention, Daxter cut himself off abruptly and turned to his friend.

 

“Jak?” Daxter said, radiating anxiety, because the sounds Jak could still make without excessive effort were so animalistic that he usually avoided them altogether. Samos had been hopeful that the fact Jak could vocalize anything at all meant he could learn to speak out loud again, but… Daxter clenched his teeth. Now was not the time to follow that line of thought.

 

“I’ve got a right to know,” Keira said sharply, distracting him.

 

“Jak’s got a right to his privacy,” Daxter retorted without looking at his foster sister.

 

“Not when we just _lost our home_ to dark eco freaks that looked just like Dark Jak, he doesn’t!”

 

Daxter whirled and glared at her. “And when do you plan on sharing _your_ past with us, Keira?”

 

“ _My_ past hasn’t _killed_ anyone!” Keira glared at Daxter. “And while we’re on the topic, what were _you_ doing in Haven all those years, anyway, Daxter? I _know_ there weren’t any metalkid gangs left the last couple years. Just how _were_ you earning your keep?”

 

“ _None_ of your fu-”

 

Jak punched the wall again. They both turned to him this time.

 

Looking pleadingly at Keira, Jak held his hands at his side, palms up, and tilted his head.

 

“You didn’t do anything to apologise for,” Daxter said, angry with Keira for making Jak feel like he was at fault.

 

But Keira deflated as suddenly as she‘d exploded in the first place, sinking back down across the fire and burying her face in her hands again. “I- damn it. No, Jak _, I’m_ sorry, I shouldn‘t have... I… it’s just…” She looked up, and her eyes were starting to glitter. “Sandover’s _gone_ , and _Daddy’s_ gone, and I think Haven was _burning,_ and _what are we going to do?_ ” Keira’s last few words were a terrified wail.

 

Daxter sighed and looked down at the journal he still held. They didn’t even know if it had any answers for them. It was still their best bet. He shook his head and turned to Jak. “Maybe you should read it yourself. I mean… now that you can.”

 

Jak would have backed up even more, but the cave wall stopped him. He shook his head, eyes locked on the journal, and gestured between it and Daxter.

 

“Jak, man, I don’t really want to read this damn thing either.” Dax backed into the wall himself, then slid down it so he was sitting on the rocky floor and looked back up at Jak. “Sit down?”

 

Reluctantly, Jak sat down beside him, but still refused to look at the journal. Dax looked up and over the fire and caught Keira’s eye. Sighing, she left her position by the zoomer to come and sit at Daxter’s other side. He leaned as far in to Jak as he thought his buddy would allow before cracking the journal open and beginning to read out loud. He skipped the header where it said _Subject 103DE2_ \- he didn’t think Jak needed to hear that, and he sure as hell didn’t want to call him that.

 

The first few sentences made Dax glad of that decision.

 

“Subject prototype Dark Warrior, throwaway subject, suggestions prohibit use of name, prohibit friendly contact, prohibit conversation… Jak, I _seriously_ don’t want to read this. You’re my friend, this is _mad_ disturbing.”

 

Jak didn’t seem to hear him. He was staring at the line _prohibit use of name_ , and he slowly reached out to run a finger along the words. He tilted his head at Daxter and then moved his free hand to cover where Dax had once seen tattoos.

 

“That ain‘t yer name,” Dax said flatly, bumping his shoulder against Jak’s side. “If you don’t answer to it, it ain’t your name. That means your name’s Jak. Nothin’ else. Not ‘less you want it to be.”

 

The sudden movement Keira made on Daxter’s other side let him know she was curious, but this wasn’t his to tell. None of this was.

 

Daxter sighed and shut the journal. Jak frowned and Keira opened her mouth, but before either one of them had a chance to say anything Dax had started speaking again.

 

"When the metalheads invaded I was living with my dad in the Slu- Dead Town. I didn't know my mom, Dad never said anything about her and I didn't ask. I thought I could ask when I was older and he'd answer me. But… when the metalheads attacked, Dad woke me up and told me to run, and I... well, I did. I ran away. " He hissed out a breath between his teeth. "Just... ran away, and left my dad."

 

Jak leaned into him. On his other side, Keira did the same.

 

Daxter wanted to shut his eyes. He didn't, because that would be cutting Jak out of the conversation. "I didn't come back for... Precursors, I don't know. Days, I think.." Daxter swallowed, closed his eyes, and quickly forced them back open. "And then …well, I went back, eventually. Only it took a few tries. I was scared of m'own home... who does that?" Daxter's breathing started to speed up. So did his speech. "An' I found my dad, he was still in the kitchen, only… only his chest was all kinda ripped to shreds, an'… I didn't know what to do so I ran away again, and I kept runnin', an'…"

 

By now Dax was nearly hyperventilating and Jak shook his shoulder to get him to stop.

 

"You don't have to tell us, Dax," Keira said quietly.

 

Dax's eyes were suspiciously glittery when he whipped his head around to stare at her. "Yeah I _do_ , Keira."

 

Jak squeezed Daxter's shoulder. When Dax looked at him, Jak shook his head and put his hand on the journal.

 

"Jak, really-"

 

Shaking his head again stubbornly, Jak ducked his head and thumbed through the journal, finding a page and pointing at it.

 

Daxter's heart sank. Jak hadn't known how to read until recently. He'd known Daxter had the journal all along. He'd read the damn thing, or at least parts of it.

 

That raised all kinds of new questions, but now was hardly the time to go hounding Jak about them.

 

Swallowing, Dax wiped angrily at his eyes and bent to read what Jak had pointed out. It was towards the end of the journal and nowhere near where Dax had been reading. It was also in a different format. "Requested permission to pit- Jak-" Daxter would not call his friend by that damn string of numbers and letters- "Against other Dark Warriors. Other Dark Warriors seem to be badly flawed; the dark eco not only attracts metalheads, but warps lesser elves into lesser Dark Warriors, dubbed merely Warriors. Permission pending for further investigation." Daxter stopped.

 

He was at the end of the journal.

 

Keira broke the silence first. "So... 'against other Dark Warriors.' That means that Jak is.. was supposed to be a Dark Warrior, too? And that's what they're called. And the villagers..." She winced. "They'd become weaker versions. Warriors. Unless they're killed outright," she added quietly.

 

Jak shifted, but didn't move to add anything.

 

"Does that mean, if we've both been around Jak this long...?" Keira trailed off, Jak flinched, and Daxter leaned around to glare at her.

 

"It's Jak," Daxter said firmly. "We'll be fine."

 

Jak himself didn't look too convinced of this, and there was very little logic in that statement, but none of them pointed that out.

 

Instead, exhausted and heartsick, they put the fire out and curled up in the corner to sleep- Jak with his back to the wall and Daxter beside him, Keira on Daxter's other side, just close enough that if she reached out she could touch him but just far enough away not to bother Jak.

 

For one more night, at least, they could take comfort in each other's presence.

 

The morning would be a different story.

 

Daxter spent most of the night staring at the cavern ceiling, knowing it was impossible to make out in the darkness but straining his eyes to try anyway. He could hear Keira's breathing on one side, slow and even save for tiny hitching sobs every now and then, and Jak's breathing on his other side, just a bit too quick and unsteady for Jak to really be asleep.

 

Because in the morning, they'd have to split up.

 

Keira wanted to go to Haven and search for Samos, he knew it. He even understood it, at least a little.

 

But he and Jak couldn't go to Haven. He and Jak were going to have to face the wastelands, which were overrun with Warriors and Dark Warriors and metalheads, all of them out for Jak's (and by extension, Daxter's) blood. With Sandover gone, and likely the other scattered villages overtaken as well, they had no choices left.

 

Daxter fell asleep with a lump of worry lodged in his throat, but by the time he opened his eyes in the morning it had metamorphosed into something new- into a resolve, into a focus, into something to strive for.

 

This wasn't the same world it had been two days ago, and they were changing with it- but they were going to _fight_ , and they were going to _live._


	11. Running Through Hell, Heaven Can Wait

 

 

Usually, the morning light brought them all relief. For Daxter, simply seeing the sun rise without the interference of Haven's smog was still a joy- for Keira, it was light enough to work on her projects by- for Jak, it was another of a hundred reminders, large and small, that he was really free.

 

This morning, though, the rising sun brought with it only a deepening sense of dread. They'd all finally gotten some sleep, although they'd had to take it in shifts; not one of them was truly rested as a result.

 

And of course, they hadn't discussed it yet, but they all knew they were about to have to split up.

 

There were supplies enough for breakfast for them all in Daxter's rucksack alone, because he'd gone hungry often enough before and would like to never have to do it again. They ate in silence, in the dark, not daring to move the rock from the entrance until they were ready to make a break for it. It seemed like forever and no time at all from when they woke to when Daxter took one last bite of his sandwich.

 

Keira broke the silence. "You two take the zoomer. I'll take the jetboard."

 

"But it's _your_ zoomer," Daxter argued immediately, as Jak's eyes widened. "That's yer baby, Keira."

 

She shook her head and scuffed out the fire, plunging them into far more complete darkness. Now the only light was from the sun leaking in through cracks. Maybe Jak could still see, but Daxter could no longer make out Keira's expression. "And it seats two. The jetboard can only carry one, unless you're willing to piggyback against the wastes." Her voice changed as she forced false cheer into it. "Besides, _I'm_ not the one who's gonna end up drawing off all the Warriors."

 

Jak's ears drooped and Daxter instinctively stepped closer to him, knowing his reaction even without being able to see it, but it was hard to ascribe malicious motives to Keira when she was giving up her zoomer. Anyway, it was true- it was the two of them that were going to have to run, as fast and as far as they could.

 

They didn't even have a destination. Where was there left to go?

 

They didn't say goodbye. To say goodbye would have been admitting this could be more final than they wanted to realise.

 

Instead, Daxter and Keira were aboard their escape vehicles even before Jak rolled the boulder away and sprang onto the zoomer himself in the same motion. As soon as sunlight lit the cave, all of them bolted, tearing through a very surprised group of Warriors hovering near the cave entrance before scattering, speeding in different directions.

 

Dax was more upset than he'd expected at the thought that he might never see Keira again. He'd lost enough family as it was; he'd have preferred not to let her out of his sight, but between the mechanic and Jak, it was Jak who needed him more.

 

He tried very hard to keep that in mind over the interminable time they spent in the Wastes.

 

The Warriors were relentless in their pursuit, and Daxter swiftly found himself graceful for Jak's insistence that he practice with his scattergun so frequently. Even with that added protection, however, Jak was having to go Dark to protect them more and more often, and with the forced closer proximity of the zoomer Daxter tried hard not to shudder or twitch too violently whenever the wisping dark eco reached for him, sometimes even seeming to try to seep into _him_ the way it did Jak.  He was sure Jak noticed his flinches, but if confronted Dax would vehemently deny them.

               

It would have been easy, so, so easy, to resent Jak; after all, if Dax didn't have to worry about him, he could have been back in Haven with Keira searching out Samos and restoring what family he had. He couldn't, though. Jak had become family to him so quickly, without the struggle it had been with Samos and Keira, without the ingrained metalkid wariness Sig had needed to fight past. Jak _needed_ him, needed Daxter to be his friend when he hadn't thought he'd ever have any again.

 

So Daxter stayed with him. Keira would be all right on her own, would find Samos on her own. Jak... would not have been all right on his own.  

 

Actually, Daxter suspected he wouldn't have been all right himself, not after growing so used to companionship, but he wasn't about to admit that.

 

Daxter had spent more of his life on the run than he had with somewhere warm and dry to sleep at night, so he was surprised he was having such trouble readjusting. He'd grown used to his sedentary life in Sandover, far more than he'd realised.

               

Jak fared better, having never lost his hunted-animal wariness. It was Jak who found a safe spot to sleep every night, who hunted for food, who set their grueling pace as they headed simply _away_. They had no clear destination, for there _was_ no clear destination- nowhere left to go but deeper into the wastelands. No one _left_ to them, for that matter, for Sig and Samos were gone, and Tess and Keira were as good as gone, and there was no going back from here.

 

So they ran on.

 

Although he hadn't known it long, Daxter grieved over the loss of his bright, simple life in Sandover. Maybe that grief was why it took him so long to notice something was wrong.

 

He’d been colder at night, but of course he had, they were living rough in a desert. He’d ached quite a bit during the day, but again, rough living.  The fights couldn't have been helping, either, and he found himself even sorer every time he'd spent any significant time around Dark Jak- but then, he'd had plenty of warnings about dark eco, and he'd always ignored them so far. He’d been hungrier, but food was less and less appealing, which was probably a good thing because there was less and less _of_ it, even carefully rationed. They were still in the desert, there wasn’t a lot of hunting to be had. He felt dizzy sometimes, and he felt oddly like he was shrinking in his skin, but he chalked that up to the heat and the lack of appetite and shoved it to the back of his mind.

 

Jak noticed before he did. He kept trying to give Daxter more than his share of food. He let him have more of the blanket. He kept trying to tell Daxter something, but Dax was afraid he knew what it was and so he pretended not to notice.

 

Then came the morning Daxter woke up to intense pain crawling all through him. He bit down, hard, to keep from screaming; he thrashed because he couldn’t help it. He slit his eyes open, then slammed them shut because even the light _hurt_. Everything hurt. His _blood_ hurt, how was that even something he could feel? He itched and writhed and felt Jak grabbing desperately at his shoulders, but couldn’t work out how to respond to his friend’s frantic shaking. He couldn’t seem to make his limbs move right, and he certainly couldn’t remember how the hell to talk.

 

Finally, blessedly, the world faded out.

 

When it came back into focus some indeterminable time later, he held off on opening his eyes, held off even on letting his breathing get back to normal, because for one thing he felt oddly warm and comfortable and most importantly _nothing hurt_. Whatever he was curled up on was warm and reassuring, somehow, and though there was something heavy laid over his back it was more like the feeling of being wrapped snugly in a warm blanket on a cold night than anything else.

 

For another thing, the noise he woke to was mostly hitching breath and air whistling through teeth, but there was a moment when he heard a voice, strange and hoarse and quiet and strained. All he said was, “ _Daxter.”_

 

Daxter’s eyes shot open.

 

Then he slammed them shut, because whoa, that couldn't be right.

 

When he edged them open again, slowly, his view hadn't changed.

 

The warm, heavy something laid over his back- over his _whole_ _back_ \- was Jak's hand. He was on Jak's lap, and either Jak had suddenly gotten one hell of a growth spurt or Daxter was suddenly way, way smaller than he should be. And furrier. And, he realised when he jumped to his feet- all four of them- bristling, scared and angry and confused; he had a tail.

 

Jak started to snatch his hand away, but Daxter pressed up towards it, because at least Jak was the same. When the hand came hesitantly back down to pet him, Daxter groaned and asked, "What the hell just happened?"

 

Oh good, he could still talk. That would have gotten very frustrating, very fast.

 

"Jak," he said, very slowly, because he still wasn't quite sure this was happening, "I am an ottsel. Five minutes ago, I was not, and now I am, and," he took a deep breath, and the rather hysterical cry he let loose was sure to bring more metalheads down on them but he didn't care just then, " _Why am I an ottsel_?"


	12. Stand My Ground

They have to run from the metalheads before he could get any answer, of course, because Dax in any form had proved unable to keep his mouth shut.

 

Jak wrenched the sidecar from the zoomer over Daxter’s protests (“We are gonna need that so frickin’ fast once I turn back, Jak, come on, I know I’m irresistible but th’back of th’zoomer ain’t a good place for snugglin-’”) and they fly far faster without it. Daxter wrapped himself snugly around Jak’s shoulder, claws digging for purchase, and normally he’d feel at least a little guilty that he has to have scratched Jak more than once but right now he’s a little too terrified to worry about it.

 

Sometimes when they take a tight enough turn Jak’s hair swings out enough to cover Dax completely and that almost freaks him out more than the initial change did. Daxter has always been small. He’d long since learned to convert his stature to an asset and rely on speed and agility, but that isn’t helping now, when how very _much_ bigger than him everything suddenly is makes his mouth dry out with fear.

 

He couldn’t say how long it takes them to reach an uninhabited cave to hole up in for the night. He presses himself down close to Jak’s shoulder in uncharacteristic silence as he watches his friend block up the entrance against enemies. Normally, Daxter would be helping him, but now even the smallest rocks Jak uses are several times the size of Dax. In fact, there’s no way Dax could get back out of the cave without his friend’s help, which shouldn’t make him start to hyperventilate the way it does because it’s _Jak_ , it isn’t like he wouldn’t let Daxter out in a heartbeat if he asked- hell, he’d probably be willing to leave a small enough gap for Daxter to wriggle back out through if it’d calm Dax down.

 

Daxter doesn’t actually think it would, because it would only highlight how very, very large the rocks around them have become.

 

 _Everything around them_ is several times his size.

 

Daxter has _always_ been small but he’s never _liked_ it, because it’s awful, frankly. He’s a runt because he’s been feeding himself since he was a kid and sometimes he’s not so good at that, because he’s _not_ big and he’s not strong but he never wanted to be the runt. It just _is_ , so he talks louder and runs faster and taunts the other metalkids with the way he can wriggle into spaces they can’t (that they don’t need to hide in because they’re big enough they can fight and win and Daxter never wins).

 

He knew he still had problems, Dax isn’t stupid, but he’d thought he’d mostly resigned himself to always being the runt. He’s old enough to know damn well he isn’t gonna get a miracle growth spurt anytime soon and even if he snapped and took up bodybuilding there just isn’t enough body to build _on_ for him to ever be a match for even the tougher metalkids he’d known.

 

He’d never anticipated one day waking up even more of a runt than before. For one thing, he hadn’t really thought it was possible; he sincerely hadn’t ever met anyone his age as short as he was. Samos frequently grumps about the city stunting his growth, but the other metalkids had all been bigger, too.

 

The worst of it, though, is how terrible it _isn’t._

 

After all, he’s spent all his life adapting so that his size is more of a help than a hindrance, and that adaptability has always been his greatest strength.

 

He starts to suspect it might also be his downfall, but he really, really doesn’t want to pursue that line of thought.

 

It isn’t like he starts to slip and forget slowly who, or rather _what,_ he is, either; no, Daxter’s absently brought his tail within reach and started to groom it fastidiously inside of an hour. He doesn’t hurt for the first time in he doesn’t know how long and when they flush out a rat as they go to start their fire he catches himself eyeing it with interest.

               

He doesn’t even know he’s preparing to leap after the rat, claws flexing and releasing in Jak’s shirt as he hunkers into a crouch and lets out strange little hunting chirps, until Jak’s hand closes gently around him and jolts him back to reality.

 

Daxter can’t help the squeak he lets out, any more than he could the chirps before. Jak doesn’t seem to mind. Sitting carefully cross-legged before the fire, Jak draped his scarf over his lap and set Daxter down in it.

 

His hand doesn’t leave Daxter’s back, instead stroking gently along his spine. Daxter wants to arch away and press closer all at once. He’s warm and safe, red folds of cloth falling away all around him, Jak shielding him from above and below and all sides because Jak would never let anything hurt Daxter.

 

Anything but this.

               

Jak doesn’t stop petting, but his head falls forward and his eyes fall shut, and his breath starts to hitch. He’s trying to speak again but he can’t, struggling to force more than simple animal vocalizations from his crippled larynx, and all his effort culminates in nothing more than several anxious whines and a sound like a teakettle hiss. Daxter flinches and then has to pry his claws loose again. He can guess how much the attempt is hurting Jak, and in more ways than the physical, though the rough, exhausted quality to Jak’s broken voice is going to haunt Daxter’s nights for a long time. And if he’s trying this hard now, just how much pain and effort had gone into Daxter’s name earlier?

 

Besides, it isn’t as though Daxter has ever had a problem understanding Jak.

 

“Y’don’t gotta be sorry, Jak,” Dax replies to that raw noise. “Ain’t none a’this yer fault. _None of it_ , alright?”

 

Jak’s free hand brushed Daxter’s new claws.

 

“Yeah, e’en if.” Daxter scampered across the scarf and planted his front paws on Jak’s chest. Jak’s hands shift with him, hovering close but never actually trapping him, careful not to confine. “M’still me, Jak, just furry. I dunno why either but m’not aWarrior, m’not goin’ anywhere.” Dax let his voice drop again, crowded closer, and wished Jak would open his eyes. Jake does most of his speaking with his eyes and Daxter doesn’t want to be the only one in this conversation. “I’m still here. I ain’t goin’ anywhere. M’still here. M’not leavin’.”

               

Warm, rough hands enveloped him. Dax froze up a moment, because it hits him yet again how _small_ he’s become, but Jak is as cautious with him as ever, and Dax goes on. “I ain’t goin’ anywhere, Jak. Not without you. Not ‘less you want me to. I ain’t gonna leave.”

 

Daxter repeats himself until he’s hoarse, until the fire dies down to embers, until Jak’s eyes finally inched back open.

 

 _No wonder he was keeping them shut_ , was Daxter’s first thought when Jak glanced at him with guilt and fear writ large in his eyes and resignation still clinging stubbornly to the shadows behind them.

 

“It _isn’t your fault_ ,” Daxter said again, holding Jak’s eyes as long as he could, knowing now where he’d suspected before that he’d have to spend a lot of time repeating that before Jak stopped blaming himself, if he ever did.

 

Daxter figures it this is anyone’s fault it’s _his_ , because it isn’t like he didn’t have plenty of warning in the way the dark eco reacted around them and in the form of Samos’ lectures and even in the journal, had he actually been willing to read it.

 

And it could have been worse. It _should_ have been worse. Daxter doesn’t know why he’s turned into an ottsel and not a Warrior, and he _should_ read through that journal carefully to see if he can find out, and he doesn’t want to. He doesn’t. He doesn’t want to be an ottsel, either, but even then he doesn’t want to _touch_ the damned journal ever again. Besides, even assuming it says anything about this, which he rather doubts, he doesn’t particularly want to see words like ‘irreversible’ in print. And after seeing this many Warriors up close and personal, he strongly suspects that’s the sort of phrasing he’d find.

 

The words could be wrong, of course, but he still doesn’t need to see them.

 

“It isn’t your fault,” Daxter repeats again, softer, curling tighter despite himself. He immediately wishes he hadn’t- it makes it all the more obvious that Jak could now easily pick him up in one hand. “Samos warned me, and I wouldn’t leave you then. Keira tried to warn me, and I wouldn’t leave you then. Hell, _you_ tried to warn me, and you should know by now _I’m not going anywhere_. You’re my friend, _I_ made _my_ choice, and I am not leaving you.”

 

Had he not been physically in Jak’s lap, Daxter doubted he would have felt the fine shudder that ran through him.

 

“Ain’t your fault,” Daxter repeated gently again. Then he sighed and stretched (even at his full length, he doesn’t reach outside of Jak’s fabric-draped lap). “I’m exhausted, I know you’re exhausted, we’d better get some sleep.” He flicked his overlong ears and added, “At least these should make up for if one of us falls asleep on watch, right?”

 

Jak still looked deeply unhappy, but he nodded and went to clear a place near the far wall for sleeping. Daxter took the opportunity to scramble from his lap and explore the cave floor in more depth.

 

He has to go around obstacles he’d normally have stepped over, and he watches for Jak’s feet even though he really doesn’t think Jak would ever risk stepping on him, and he never knew all the smells a cave could hold, from guano to the musty earth to the faintly glowing fungi he finds wedged in a crevice on a different wall.

 

Then there are the beetles. Daxter has pounced on and half-devoured one before he recovers himself. He finishes the beetle, because he’s more than hungry enough to accept that it _is_ food, but he makes sure Jak isn’t looking anywhere near him first.

 

Jak clicks his tongue to let Daxter know when he’s got a sleeping area set up and Daxter scampers over. It’s not far different than their usual arrangement, save that Jak’s scarf is coiled neatly in a smaller bed for Daxter atop their blankets. There’s still enough space to flip the blanket over both of them, although unless he arranges himself with his head hanging out Daxter’s going to be enveloped.

 

It’s what they have, so Daxter climbs into the scarf without hesitating as Jak arranges himself back against the wall. Daxter really hopes Jak’s nightmares don’t flare up with a vengeance along with the rearranged sleeping situation.

 

                He’s blindsided by his _own_ nightmares instead.


End file.
